Does anybody know the girl I'm talking about? (I don't mean personally of course) I only ask because I think the general population here is slightly older than I am.
The year was 1993, she would have been about 16 and I was a couple of years older than that at the time. THIS appeared out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning to the head and scrambled my brain forever.
It was not a particularly good movie, but the
girl... Where did she come from, I wondered. Why haven't I seen her before? Where can I see her again? (I'm sure this lust at first sight kind of thing has happened to everyone at some point, but probably with a different girl - or guy or whatever floats yer boat) This was about 10 years before I had internet, so all I could do was wonder. But I literally would have figured out a way to run myself over with a bus if it meant I could see her again. This was
the girl as far as I was concerned. Since that day I have never been able to fully appreciate any other female.
She followed it up with an aerosmith video for the song Cryin'. As far as I know this turned out to be the most popular video EVER and I think it still retains this crown. She gets a tatoo and a naval piercing in the video, and I've heard it mentioned more than a few times that she is primarily responsible for dragging the body art business kicking and screaming into the public spotlight and massive popularity it enjoyed for years after, which obviously still continues to this day. She also fakes suicide in the video by jumping off a bridge into traffic below, only to be saved by a bungee cord (which actually looked a lot more like wire in which case it would have broken her back, but that's not the point), and I'm sure this helped the whole bungee business as well. For a period of several months if not a full year this screen shot from that video depicting her dangling from a bridge seemed to be the single most used image on mtv, muchmusic, etc, used as a background for numerous promotions, advertisements and such at almost every commercial break. (If this image is not acceptable I'm happy to remove it but I think it's pretty tame by today's standards)
She followed that with 2 more aerosmith videos, and the trio turned out to be aerosmith's most popular videos of all time.
Then came Clueless, which was described as a juggernaut and a sleeper hit. Still not oscar material by any stretch but it made a lot of money and as far as I'm concerned it cemented her firmly (in my mind at least) as the most desireable female of all time.
Then I somehow lost track of her for over a decade, and upon searching for her recently (online of course) I was shocked to find that somehow the girl that changed the world made a very wrong turn at some point. Even now I can't believe that would have been possible. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?
Her turn in batman and robin a year after clueless won her several awards for worst supporting actress. AFAIK this was the lowest grossing (and rated) of the batman series, and I've seen comments that suggest that she alone was responsible for ruining the entire batman franchise. I saw that movie and I'd have to say the only problem with it is that it has batman and other supporting characters are in it. Maybe I'm biased but I think she's the only redeeming quality in the history of batman.
She did a few things after that, nothing particularly noteworthy, and even her worst movies can be fixed by editing out any scenes she does not appear in (yes, I'm
that shallow. It should be noted that she is actually not a bad actress, even though I don't think a lot of her later work (especially the made for tv stuff) is worth seeing except for that fact that she's on screen. Given the right script and all the rest, I believe she could change the world again at any moment. So again, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?
Was it batman that offended everyone?
Was it the outspoken vegan lifestyle? (She recently a nude peta ad and nude photoshoot and she's still smokin hot)
Was it bad professional decisions?
Does anybody except me even care?
What is wrong with this world?
I don't blame her, she's just a girl doing what she does, but considering the fact that she was probably the most wildly successful, bankable new mtv/movie star of the day in/for her age group somebody dropped the ball somewhere...
