KEY POINTS:
For good-time girls, times are pretty bad. For Anna Nicole, Britney, Lindsay and Nicole, fame and fortune have brought nothing but trouble.
The tawdry reality show that was Anna Nicole Smith's life continued after her death, as her estranged mother and her dodgy lover battled in court for the right to her body.
Lindsay Lohan, who's doing her level best to drink away her talent, is attending AA meetings before she's legally old enough to enter a bar.
Nicole Ritchie, one half of the Simple Life duo, is finding life is not so simple after all, as she battles anorexia and drugs.
And then there's Britney Spears. Poor, sad Britney is on a self-destructive rampage, and you'd have to wonder whether she can come back from her latest self-mutilation. Shaving her head, cutting off the long, blonde hair that symbolised her all-American sexy wholesomeness, appears to be a rejection of the Britney that was. Whether there's enough substance beneath the manufactured pop tart's surface to establish a new persona remains to be seen. The poor woman appears to be desperately unhappy but unable to halt her downward spiral, given that she left rehab twice in a week.
It's like the Mother Ship is calling the girls home. This week, a US report warned of the dangers of the sexualisation of young girls. When a girl's value comes only from her sexual appearance or behaviour, the study warned, depression, eating disorders and poor academic performance will follow.
Parents were given advice on how to combat the all-pervasive sexual imagery, but perhaps their most effective weapon could be showing their daughters images of Britney, Lindsay, Nicole et al as they are now and asking them if that's how they want to end up. Should be enough to scare even the most precocious 8-year-old out of her sex kitten baby-doll nightie and back into flannel pyjamas.
