Whenever I need to apologize to someone, I look to acting guru
and personal role model Lindsey Lohan.
See, there’s a famous scene in the epic, monumental and
ground-breaking movie “Mean Girls” where Lohan plays
the main character, Cady Heron, and apologizes at prom to all the
girls in her school for an entire school year of smack-talking and
gossip.
“Well, half the people in this room are mad at me, and the
other half only like me because they think I pushed someone in
front of a bus, so that’s not good,” she announces.
“To all the people whose feelings got hurt by the burn book,
I’m really sorry. … I think everybody looks like royalty
tonight.”
And with a generic compliment and two simple words, everyone
accepts it and moves on.
Unfortunately, there’s a few things wrong with all that,
and I’m not just talking about the stalker-ish affection I
hold for the movie.
What’s wrong is that apologies are not as easy in real
life as they look on the big screen. In movie-land, characters can
do pretty much do anything to anyone, as long as the magical phrase
“I’m sorry” is said before the last scene.
Case in point: Cady makes it look simple when she stands in
front of the entire prom and eloquently renounces her horrible
ways. Cher fixes everything in “Clueless” when she
apologies to Tai for being crazy and setting her up with a guy who
actually liked her. With a smile and a simple “I’m
sorry,” Jerry Maguire makes it look like there’s no big
deal that he abandons Dorothy and her son.
Time and time again, those two words always seem to lead to the
happily-ever-after ending that all movie personas are striving
for.
But anyone who has ever gotten into a fight with someone knows
that in the real world, forgiveness more often than not takes more
work than a little lip service. Just look at celebrities’
off-screen lives.
Take Lohan’s off-screen feud with Disney diva Hilary Duff.
It started with rumors that Duff was dating Lohan’s
dangerously underage ex-boyfriend Aaron Carter. Of course, by now
the two underage divas have made the scene of teen pop culture look
like a back-country mud wrestling match.
While they both have issued half-hearted apologies, it
doesn’t seem like the media, not to mention each of their
egos, are going to let this one go away any time soon. I guess
reportedly calling someone a “queen of superficiality,”
a “horrible person” and stealing her boyfriend are
things to hold a grudge about.
Sure apologies are difficult and over-rated, and sometimes even
meaningless, but that doesn’t mean we should completely
disregard them as movie-magic crap; it just means we should
actually be sincere when we apologize when we ourselves have been
mean girls. Just don’t expect to call an entire school full
of people “grotzsky little biotchs” and “fugly
sluts” and get away with it.
If I could apologize for anything, it’d be for being my
own version of a grotzsky little biotch to one of my roommates
lately. And I know that might not be enough to create my own happy
ending, but in the real world, at least it’s a start.
Hell, I’m not Lindsey Lohan.
I just hope my roommate will accept my apology all the same.
Scott apologizes for making you read this column. E-mail him
at jscott@media.ucla.edu.