By Smaktakula

India is considering imposing a ban on drug-addled former child star Lindsay Lohan.  The friction is alleged to arise from Lohan’s participation in a BBC documentary on child labor and human trafficking in India.  Indian officials contend that Lohan travelled to India on an improper visa, and additionally irritated aid workers by falsely implying that through her efforts alone “40 children had been saved.”   India would like you to believe that its row with Lohan erupted for these reasons alone.  If this sounds fishy to you–it should.  The problem is far more disturbing than simply India’s failure to understand that when it starts heaping rules and regulations on a free spirit like Lohan, it crushes that very special and delicate thing within the actress which makes her better than ordinary folks.                             

Rather, it is increasingly clear that a darker and uglier motivation lies behind India’s proposed LoBan.  Although India officially renounced its caste system generations ago, the nation has yet to address its age-old bias against skanks both high-born and low.  Indian history is replete with skankism, and it remains one of the biggest taboos in the culture.  Lohan defenders suggest that this anti-skank sentiment is the true impetus behind the LoBan, and that Lohan is not being punished for her behavior, but simply for what she is.  This is unacceptable if true.                          

Taking first Lohan’s supposed documentary untruths–Is it really all that terrible to take credit for the heroic efforts of others?  If these “aid” workers are as interested in saving children as they pretend to be, it shouldn’t matter who gets credit.  And really, is there anyone who believes that BBC viewers would be interested in these backwater heroics if not for the In-Your-Face star power that Lohan brings everywhere she goes?   The haters might try showing more empathy–Who hasn’t said some goofy shit while rolling hard on a triple-cocktail of Bombay Sapphire, jet lag and an eightball of Bolivian primo?         

The second allegation, that Lohan worked in India while on a tourist visa, carries even less weight.  Hello–it’s Lindsay Lohan, an American megastar.  If anything, Indian authorities would be wise to regard Lohan as a crime-fighting asset, as repeated studies have shown that the quantity of available narcotics in a given neighborhood drops precipitously within a few hours of the star’s arrival.                                  

As much as India’s politicians would have us believe otherwise, the LoBan is due neither to Lohan’s self-aggrandizing prevarication or misstating her purpose for being in the country.  The real culprit in this sad affair is prejudice–prejudice against skanks.  It should be noted that this bias was until very recently largely shared by the West.  Of course, there are still scattered incidents of people in North America and Western Europe engaging in skankist behavior or anti-skank hate speech.  Fortunately, in the West these old hatreds are fading as a generation raised on such fare as Girls Gone Wild and Hot or Not comes of age.  India, perhaps alone among emerging nations, continues to stigmatize skankhood.                             

        We applaud the BBC’s selection of Lohan for their documentary, and for its tireless efforts of the network to include a wide assortment of skanks (or slags, as they are called locally) throughout its programming.  This is a relatively new step for the BBC, while in America, skank rights have generally been acknowledged for the better part of two decades.  The pivotal ‘Day Without A Skank’ in 1988 is credited as a watershed moment in the skank movement, leading directly to the adoption of the then-controversial ‘Skanks Bill of Rights.                            

This is not the first storm Lohan has been forced to weather in recent months, nor will it likely be the last; the haters lurk as always just out of sight.  But never was it said that the Flower of American Skankhood wilted easily.  No doubt this sordid event will soon be in the past, and Lohan once again in her element: photographed in the back seat of a 2006 Chevy Malibu as she performs sex acts on a Lifetime Network junior executive.  Promethean Times joins the rest of America in praying for that day to come soon.