Courtney Love

The hunger for celebrity gossip appears unslakable; there's a reason paparazzi and gossip-mongers can always find employment in Los Angeles. Even in periods of economic depression, in fact perhaps especially in periods of economic depression, the public demands stories about celebrity shenanigans and it particularly wants stories about celebrities gone bad. Celebrities losing control. It consumes, with relish, stories about celebrity breakdowns because many people seem to enjoy a sense of "how the mighty have fallen" over their morning gossip rag.

Working in Hollywood is intensely stressful, which can tend to add to the risks of experiencing mental illness. It is a highly pressured, fast-paced environment, especially for women, who have to fight twice as hard to attain half the popularity and following of their male peers, while remaining "strong" so they can be the subject of flattering profiles rather than lurid tabloid covers. Drug and alcohol abuse tend to be high in this environment as well; I've attended enough Hollywood parties as a non-drinker to know that you experience tremendous pressure to imbibe even when you have good reasons not to do so. While neither drug nor alcohol abuse is necessarily a cause of mental illness, both can cause erratic behavior and they may trigger latent mental illness, especially in a patient who is held under the looking glass instead of being given adequate support.

I wanted to BE Kim Gordon. Hell, the fact that her music sort of scared me was a plus. I wanted to make myself scary.

So, can I ask what the obsession with Ke$ha is? I only ask, because I too am completely enamored with her while simultaneously holding back the urge to be violently ill. The ‘party girl’ aesthetic and persona is certainly nothing new. From Paris to Lindsay to every other brand of this celebrity girl whose name is synonymous with blackouts and so-called ‘bad behavior" – we’ve seen/heard/and stomached it all. Yet is there something special about this Nashville-bred DIY artist (I, too, wear cowboy boots and rock gaudy gold when the mood strikes me)? The simple answer is ..

Oh, yay! It's time to demonize Courtney Love! Again! The ever-convenient target for would-be-rock dude misogyny has come under fire, yet again, for Activision's use of an unlockable Kurt Cobain avatar in Guitar Hero 5.