That vexing term “daddy issues”–the one used to connote that a woman is damaged goods in her pursuit of men who will pay attention to her the way her father never did–was never better exemplified than in the form of Lindsay Lohan. Particularly during the mid-00s, at a height of one of Michael Lohan’s embarrassing moments: being sentenced to prison for assault and a DUI (like father, like daughter with regard to the reckless driving angle). These issues were compounded by Michael’s alcoholism (again, like father, like daughter). Which perhaps made him feel a lack of shame when requesting a percentage of Lindsay’s earnings (back then, more sizable) in his divorce settlement with Dina Lohan. The judge, of course, ruled that said earnings were not considered part of any “marital assets.”
So it was that around this time, with all these instances of Michael’s nefariousness swirling, Lohan recorded “Confessions Of a Broken Heart (Daughter To Father)” for what would be her second (and likely last–no matter what indications of loose-leaf singles here and there might indicate) album, the hideously titled A Little More Personal (RAW). Incidentally, it would be the only single to materialize from the record, possibly because the majority of the tracks were, just as this one, akin to the sound of nails on a chalkboard. Still, you had to admire Lindsay in a way for her candor. For her fearless bravado in choosing to address the father responsible for her rich yet trashy Long Island background. The one who fucked her up and made her seek the adulation she couldn’t get through him by way of fame instead. Yet even despite the (then omnipresent) admiration of strangers, Lindsay still ultimately only wanted her father’s attention, which was clearly what the song and its accompanying video were aimed at getting.
At one moment trying to cite her act as a public service to others who might be dealing with the same issues, Lindsay stated, “A lot of people go through family issues, abuse and that kind of thing. I think it’s important to show that other people go through it.” So it was that, under this pretense, she went balls to the wall with her dramatic reinterpretation of the emotional trauma her father had inflicted upon her. Even going so far as to direct the video herself and cast her sister, Aliana, as, naturally, her sister. Wasting no time in getting to the crux of the drama–Michael’s violent temper–the actor portraying him, Drake Andrew, starts screaming at Dina (played by Victoria Hay) the second he walks through the door and sees her watching TV. From the sanctuary of the bathroom (which looks kind of dirty for a rich girl’s joint if you ask this viewer), Lindsay prays the rosary for her broken mind long before Lana Del Rey ever did. The narrative takes place inside of a seeming department store with the display window showcasing Michael and Dina’s entire argument because, as Lindsay said, “My life is on display.” Profound symbolism indeed, Lindsay.
As Michael’s antics get increasingly abusive, Aliana and Dina, too, whip out their own rosaries to start praying (who knew this family was so Catholic?). Of the intensity of the scenario, and the light it paints Michael in, Lindsay remarked, “I hope he’ll see what I say in the song is, ‘I love you,’ so many times, that I need him and the crazy things in my life. I hope he sees the positive side of the video rather than the negative. The video is kind of offensive, but it is very raw. He’s my father. I need someone to walk me down the aisle when I get married.” Maybe, in fact, she still hasn’t because of her current strained relationship with Daddy not so dearest. As it happened, the last time Lindsay seemed to put a loving front on her sentiments toward Michael was Father’s Day of 2005, when she said, “I hope he’s well. God bless him and love him.” Again with the Catholic shit. The same month, he would be arrested for his DUI, and in October of that year, the single and video for “Confessions Of a Broken Heart (Daughter To Father)” would come out.
At one point during the escalation of music video Michael’s rage, he shouts at music video Dina, “Shut up, don’t you put me down in front of my children! You wanna start with me? You brought this on yourself!” Throughout this intensification (with a cop car finally rolling up to the outside of the department store where a horde has already gathered to watch), a sort of “alternate,” bifurcated Lindsay has been observing (differentiated by the Macy’s-looking purple gown she’s wearing) with a more stoic expression than Bathroom Lindsay who, along with Aliana, just keeps sobbing up against the door as she overhears the argument. And it makes one wonder, “Yo Ball Gown Lindsay, can your disjointed self help a bitch out?”
Evidently not as Dina has her children gather their possessions to leave Michael, while, at the same time, a flurry of old photographs representing soon to be shattered memories orbits around Lindsay in front of the glass window she’s now looking out of. Expectedly, the window breaks with some very obvious computer-generated effects (though, in Lindsay’s defense, she did at least want to break some mirrors herself, to which the assistant director replied, “This is real glass, Lindsay. We weren’t prepared for you to break these things”). The same ones used to make it appear as though a photo of Lindsay and Aliana has been set ablaze as a direct consequence of Michael’s actions breaking their home. Ball Gown Lindsay, now in a blue dress (‘cause bitch is doing so little to help she had time to change), sits next to a wailing Aliana while Bathroom Lindsay cries into the camera as the final frame.
So it is that Lindsay, in the last year she was probably ever taken seriously, shuts down all notions of a rosy father-daughter rapport. For not since Sylvia Plath with “Daddy” has a daughter been so frank about her fractured relationship with her father (though, of late, Meghan Markle’s dynamic with her own estranged patriarch might result in a similarly blunt Lifetime movie, which Lindsay’s video also comes across as).
