Lindsay Lohan is set to host Saturday Night Live on March 3; finally putting her talent before her party girl punch line image.
This will be her fourth time hosting the show, but Lohan’s naysayers – so, most of the press and the public – are raising their eyebrows. After all, Lohan has had quite the dramatic career tailspin full of drugs, incarcerations, same-sex romps and family in-fighting.
Booking an SNL hosting appearance shows confidence in Lohan’s reliability and talent on the part of Lorne Michaels and talent producer Marci Klein. Just a day after announcing her hosting gig, Lohan was officially cast in the Lifetime movie biopic about Elizabeth Taylor, a role she’s been fighting for since last year.
Lohan also seems to be on a legal upswing. While on strict probation, she has so far impressed the Los Angeles court system with her commitment to rehabilitation. Now, a few faux-comebacks later, including a water cooler-less appearance on The Tonight Show last April, a blink-and-you-miss-it supporting part in 2010’s sexploitation flick, Machete, and December’s Playboy cover and spread, Lohan is trying to get Hollywood to turn their heads and notice her for the right reasons.
Judge to Lindsay Lohan: ‘You’re in the home stretch’
And this time, it will stick. Or, maybe it won’t. Either way, like Michaels and Klein, we’re rooting for Lohan, and their credible endorsement of her work should come as no surprise. Lohan hosted SNL three times in the mid-2000s, and starred in 2004’s Mean Girls, which was produced by Michaels and written by then-head writer Tina Fey. SNL, Michaels and especially Fey continued to support Lohan through her troubles, proving to be one of the few allies she could count on. The show never parodied her scandals, save for a brief impression by then-host Emma Stone in 2010, but that was mostly a snarky, mostly post-modern take on her attempts at staging a comeback. In fact, it would not be a surprise if Tina Fey made a cameo on the show to further show her support for Lohan.
While her previous attempts at resurgence were met with ridicule, this hosting gig will help get Lohan back in the conversation. This time, she will be in on the joke, delivering self-deprecating jabs with the charm we fell in love with, a couple of years back.
Here are five reasons to be excited for Lindsay’s comeback on SNL:
1) She has a great sense of humour about herself. Her Funny or Die eHarmony ad, released in 2009, showed Lohan skewering her recent “talents” and legal foibles while cruising for a new love interest. Lohan’s ability to poke fun at herself will enhance the episode, and help silence the critics and detractors who shape the media narrative that largely impedes on her success.
2) Beyond her self-deprecating sense of humour, she’s just good at it. Lohan is a talented SNL host and a great actress. Remember how good she was in Mean Girls, A Prairie Home Companion, or Herbie: Fully Loaded? Well, that last one may be a bit of a stretch. But, Lohan has a natural comedic flair. Some of the more famous SNL sketches of the Tina Fey era, including the infamous original Debbie Downer sketch, came from a Lohan-hosted show. Also, if you watch closely, you’ll notice Lindsay is the most-composed of all the performers in the original Debbie Downer sketch. Seriously.
3) More bankability = more roles. Success on SNL could add up to some studio bankability, or at least some street credibility, but either way, it’s working in Lohan’s favour. Already, Lohan was able to land a coveted gig in a TV movie, but Hollywood studios, with whom she notoriously had a falling out with during the 2006 production of Georgia Rule, may be willing to insure her if she has enough people in her corner. Studios are notoriously fickle when it comes to insuring recovering addicts. Even director Jon Favreau had trouble convincing the producers of Iron Man to insure Robert Downey Jr. in 2008, and Downey had his scandals long behind him. Still, SNL is the perfect barometer to prove you have acting and dramatic chops. Several Hollywood pundits credit Justin Timberlake’s crossover singer-actor success and bankability to the strength of his appearances on Saturday Night Live. We know Lindsay’s got the SNL goods, and timing could not be better, especially since she does not really have anything to promote. She’s available for hire, and hey, Emma Stone cannot play all the young (natural) redhead roles in Hollywood.
4) She’s versatile, and she can sing. Sure, maybe she does not have the vocal strength, of, say, the over-the-top Zooey Deschanel, who hosted a few weeks back, but Rumors was a fun, catchy single. Even Confessions of a Broken Heart: Daughter to Father, which Lohan also directed the music video for, has its charms. A song or two never hurts an SNL hosting gig or the star’s perception of versatility – just ask what showing off her vocals in a 1999 Joan Jett impression and 2001 Mango sketch did for Gwenyth Paltrow.
5) Tina Fey! A primetime Mean Girls reunion between Ms. Norbury and Cady Heron? If only! But, it might happen. Coming off the strength of Bossypants and 30 Rock, now in its sixth season, Fey has proven herself to be a Hollywood titan of comedy. Last week, when friend and co-star Maya Rudolph hosted, Fey did not make a cameo, unlike SNL alumna Amy Poehler, leading some to suspect she’s saving her surprise cameo for Lohan’s appearance. And what’s more fun than a Tina Fey cameo on SNL? Maybe a Sarah and Bristol Palin Republican Party endorsement sketch could be in the works? The possibilities for this renewed collaboration are endless.
So please, stop the Linsanity. …. Both the horrible Jeremy Lin puns, and the anti-Lindsay haterade.
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Joanna Adams writes the Morning Cable, and lots more, for Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at †@nowstarringTO.
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