With such a scant filmography to behold after “life” (read: addiction) kept getting in the way, the continued standout among Lindsay Lohan’s oeuvre remains 2004’s Mean Girls (though true “Lohan cinephiles” know that Machete and The Canyons are her greatest filmic contributions). It’s part of the upper echelons of Iconic High School Movies that will likely never be matched again (mainly because that’s just not how life is in high school anymore, especially since bullying is forboden). Try as Senior Year might. And so, although Lohan recently remarked that her constant need to make fun of her drug-addled past for the sake of profit was to end with that Planet Fitness commercial designed to air in time for the Super Bowl, she’s found a loophole for clinging to the past. This time, in a much “healthier” way by using one of the few viable moments from her career as an actress.
For with her latest advertising gimmick in promotion of an Allbirds running shoe, she plays up her 00s heyday with everything she’s got. This coming in the form of Mean Girls references galore. Which is technically consistent with her vow not to talk about the party girl era of the 00s that made her infamous. For it was during Mean Girls that she was still “innocent” and “Disney-friendly.” Even if Mean Girls is one of the few movies from her early career that Disney didn’t release. In keeping with her “international” shtick (what with fleeing to Dubai all those years ago, you know, after the Chateau Marmont banned her), Allbirds is a New Zealand-based company (with San Francisco tentacles). Perhaps that’s part of the reason why many Lohan “fans” will not have heard of it until now. But to make it worth their while, Lohan packs in as many tired references to her Cady Heron days as possible. Hence, the commercial being premiered on a Wednesday, just so she could have the joy of saying, “Well, it is Wednesday” as she grabs a pair of pink running shoes for her workout. Because, you know, “On Wednesdays, we wear pink.”
Elsewhere in the ad, she provides the callback to her formerly “home-schooled jungle freak” character with, “I didn’t run track in high school, I was more of a mathlete. So I get it, as a running spokesperson, I guess I’m a little…unexpected.” Not really though, considering she was already laying the groundwork for being “fitness-conscious” in that aforementioned Super Bowl ad. It’s all part of her sober living persona of the 2020s. Ostensibly in a bid to get back to work in more “serious” roles again. Like an upcoming Christmas movie titled, what else, Falling For Christmas.
So she sells “health” and “goodness” with all she’s got by getting back to the Angeleno at heart that she truly is. That’s why Lohan assures, “These don’t just look cute, they’re made from natural materials.” Because every company has to convince their consumers at least a little bit that they’re “eco-friendly.” Even if this Earth is going to hell in a handbag and there’s no stopping the train now. To make that comment cheesier, Lohan finishes tying her shoe and stares directly into the camera to tell us, “Always avoid The Plastics.” Is that what she was doing when she was breaking all manner of glass at the Chateau Marmont? One supposes.
In any case, just when you think Lohan has to be done with alluding to the decade that she’s been coasting on almost two decades later, she keeps going back for more—dragging us to that place with her because perhaps she’s aware of how much contempt we all have for the present. Yet when one clings so tirelessly to the past, it’s generally because they’ve got nothing cooking in the moment. And even when that Netflix rom-com of Lohan’s arrives later this year to “bolster” her filmography, it seems fairly certain she’ll still be alluding to Mean Girls with more gusto ad infinitum than even, say, Jennifer Grey to Dirty Dancing.
And she’ll also beat a dead horse about that “playful” reference to the pronunciation of her last name. As made evident when she rounds out the commercial with the assessment, “Bouncy. Perfect for a queen bee like Lindsay Lo-uhn. Or is it Lindsay Lo-han?” It’s cute that she still thinks anyone is inquisitive enough about her to wonder.
