But not for the reason you think.
However "hot" and beautiful Lauren is supposed to be, however much TPTB want us to recognise that as a Branning woman she has to be (a) hot, (b) beautiful, (c) essentially good and (d) all of the preceding, she simply isn't.
Lauren may be one of the prettiest characters physically on the programme ever, but she's also one of the ugliest, morally and characteristically.
First, let's dispel some myths that have arisen around Lauren - apologies to all the Laurenapologists on Digital Spy, like dicky Dixon and the absurdly named klendathu, who obviously aren't parents or, if they are, are certainly feckless ones.
Both the Branning girls are spoiled rotten. Always have been. Yes, that's down to their parents. It's not their fault that they have a snobby, social-climbing mother with a fat arse, a drink problem and a penchant to hide the fact that she's trailer trash. It's also not their fault that they have a serially adulterous father with a guilt complex about abandoning his first child. It's not their fault that they have selfish parents.
The Branning girls were always handed everything they wanted without ever experiencing the ethos of having to work for something and earn it. Possessions are more precious if they're earned. And that also builds character. Naturally, parents want their children to experience better conditions than they did, but there's a point when the character-building should start and the mollycoddling should stop.
The big problem the Branning girls had with their parents, apart from Yummy Mummy and Max putting themselves first, was the fact that Yummy Mummy always undermined Max's attempts at disciplining the kids. One would misbehave, Max would step in to mete punishment, and in barged Tanya, whining and telling Max how wrong he was to make the poor, pitiful child suffer and then Max would end up apologising and rewarding the miscreant.
Remember the infamous DVD Lauren made? Remember how she was able to do that? By nicking Max's credit card and maxing (pun intended) it out to the tune of 300 knicker to buy a camcorder. Without Max's knowledge.
That's a pretty serious thing to do. If one of my kids had done that, the least they would have suffered is working at some sorts of odd jobs for money to be paid to me to cover money stolen off my credit card, which is what Max intended Lauren to do, until Tanya pouted a pity story and Max ended up apologising to Lauren. Excuse me? Lauren did wrong, and how is she to know that without guidance and a bit of punishment?
As childhoods go, really, the Branning girls had a normal one, until they arrived in Walford. For most of their lives, they've known one set of parents - rather than the Beale twins who seemed to get a new mother every two or three years. Oh, and lest we forget, the Beale kids were pretty spoiled too. Ian threw money and gifts their way for a peaceful life, but the Beale kids worked - Peter on the stall and Lucy in the chippy - from their early teens. The Branning girls never did that or had to do it. And as for their parents arguing, well .. that's what parents do. Suck it up.
Lest we forget again, Lauren has actually committed a very serious crime. She tried to kill her father. Why? Boo-hoo, not because Max was a terrible man and a danger, but because he'd tried to break her and her boyfriend up and because he didn't want her white trash mother to break the law (again, after she had tried to bury him alive) and take the kids to France to live. After all this, instead of languishing in some juvy home someplace, afraid to bend over in the shower, she's at home with her folks. Not only did Max forgive her unconditionally, he forgave Tanya as well.
In some cultures, Max would be a fucking saint.
Let's look at Lauren's drinking problem. Stuff the myth that she started drinking under pressure of having to keep the secret of Tanya's cancer cold. Lauren was drinking for fun back when she was fourteen years old. Remember she and Lucy Beale getting drunk at Jane's "first" hen night? Remember Jack plying her and Peter Beale with alcopops at the R and R? The brutal truth is this: Lauren's drinking is an acquired trait, handed down generation to generation from her mother's side of the family.
Cora is a drunk. Not a drunk in the gutter, but she keeps a permanent buzz on to such an extent that you rarely see her without a drink in her hand. Tanya is a drunk, who masks her drinking dependency on finding any excuse to have a drink. She even uses people as drinking partners so she won't have to drink alone. And Rainie is a full-fledge alcoholic. Lauren's pattern of behaviour now mimics Rainie's. Note how her eyes light up at the mere prospect of a drink, and her parent sub her habit, because every time she gets money from them, she spends it on drink. That's not having a good time; that's feeding a dependency.
Lauren also quit school half-way through her A-Levels. She was seventeen. At seventeen, she is legally able to drive, live away from her parents and work. Understandably, her parents expected that, if she quit school, she would get a job and contribute to the family budget - in other words, pay for her room and her share of the food bought. That's not unreasonable, especially in this day and age of hard economy. Such practices also teach people how to budget and control their money.
And, please, disabuse yourself of the notion that Max and Tanya earn a lot of money. The salon is hardly full, and Max is struggling to sell second-hand cars on a backstreet lot. He is in debt as well - hence, the asking Derek for money (ostensibly to keep his "secret" a "secret"). Speculation points to Max having possibly another wife and maybe a lovechild he's supporting. One thing's for certain, Max is not wealthy. That's why he's joined forces with Phil Mitchell to sell the stolen motors Phil fixes. Max is dicing with a prison sentence at best. Someone else earning money would help the household.
And, Dixon and klendathu - dumbasses, please ... young people can work and still have a good time. It's been done before. There's no law in the land which says poor, pitiful, hard-done-by Lauren shouldn't have to pull her weight at some sort of job during the day to pay for her partying at night. She is lazy, entitled, and rude. I can accept she may have no direction or not know what to do with her life at eighteen, but there are stop-gap jobs which youngsters do to get the money they want to spend.
There was never anyone more entitled than Lucy Beale, yet when her father abandoned her and her younger brother when he had a breakdown, she went to work and fought to keep her father's businesses afloat. Lauren would just drink the day away. Her treatment of her parents sometimes is disgusting.
It's one thing to say Lauren's parents are "allowing" her to enjoy life. She wants to be considered an adult, yet supported as if she's a child. She's a great advertisement for youth in this time. She's everything any parent wouldn't want their daughter to be.
The entire shabang of young characters on the programme leave a lot to be desired, but out of all of them, Lauren is one of the few who really need a resounding slap.
She certainly deserves a health warning - her lifestyle is a danger in itself. Guttersnipe.
However "hot" and beautiful Lauren is supposed to be, however much TPTB want us to recognise that as a Branning woman she has to be (a) hot, (b) beautiful, (c) essentially good and (d) all of the preceding, she simply isn't.
Lauren may be one of the prettiest characters physically on the programme ever, but she's also one of the ugliest, morally and characteristically.
First, let's dispel some myths that have arisen around Lauren - apologies to all the Laurenapologists on Digital Spy, like dicky Dixon and the absurdly named klendathu, who obviously aren't parents or, if they are, are certainly feckless ones.
Both the Branning girls are spoiled rotten. Always have been. Yes, that's down to their parents. It's not their fault that they have a snobby, social-climbing mother with a fat arse, a drink problem and a penchant to hide the fact that she's trailer trash. It's also not their fault that they have a serially adulterous father with a guilt complex about abandoning his first child. It's not their fault that they have selfish parents.
The Branning girls were always handed everything they wanted without ever experiencing the ethos of having to work for something and earn it. Possessions are more precious if they're earned. And that also builds character. Naturally, parents want their children to experience better conditions than they did, but there's a point when the character-building should start and the mollycoddling should stop.
The big problem the Branning girls had with their parents, apart from Yummy Mummy and Max putting themselves first, was the fact that Yummy Mummy always undermined Max's attempts at disciplining the kids. One would misbehave, Max would step in to mete punishment, and in barged Tanya, whining and telling Max how wrong he was to make the poor, pitiful child suffer and then Max would end up apologising and rewarding the miscreant.
Remember the infamous DVD Lauren made? Remember how she was able to do that? By nicking Max's credit card and maxing (pun intended) it out to the tune of 300 knicker to buy a camcorder. Without Max's knowledge.
That's a pretty serious thing to do. If one of my kids had done that, the least they would have suffered is working at some sorts of odd jobs for money to be paid to me to cover money stolen off my credit card, which is what Max intended Lauren to do, until Tanya pouted a pity story and Max ended up apologising to Lauren. Excuse me? Lauren did wrong, and how is she to know that without guidance and a bit of punishment?
As childhoods go, really, the Branning girls had a normal one, until they arrived in Walford. For most of their lives, they've known one set of parents - rather than the Beale twins who seemed to get a new mother every two or three years. Oh, and lest we forget, the Beale kids were pretty spoiled too. Ian threw money and gifts their way for a peaceful life, but the Beale kids worked - Peter on the stall and Lucy in the chippy - from their early teens. The Branning girls never did that or had to do it. And as for their parents arguing, well .. that's what parents do. Suck it up.
Lest we forget again, Lauren has actually committed a very serious crime. She tried to kill her father. Why? Boo-hoo, not because Max was a terrible man and a danger, but because he'd tried to break her and her boyfriend up and because he didn't want her white trash mother to break the law (again, after she had tried to bury him alive) and take the kids to France to live. After all this, instead of languishing in some juvy home someplace, afraid to bend over in the shower, she's at home with her folks. Not only did Max forgive her unconditionally, he forgave Tanya as well.
In some cultures, Max would be a fucking saint.
Let's look at Lauren's drinking problem. Stuff the myth that she started drinking under pressure of having to keep the secret of Tanya's cancer cold. Lauren was drinking for fun back when she was fourteen years old. Remember she and Lucy Beale getting drunk at Jane's "first" hen night? Remember Jack plying her and Peter Beale with alcopops at the R and R? The brutal truth is this: Lauren's drinking is an acquired trait, handed down generation to generation from her mother's side of the family.
Cora is a drunk. Not a drunk in the gutter, but she keeps a permanent buzz on to such an extent that you rarely see her without a drink in her hand. Tanya is a drunk, who masks her drinking dependency on finding any excuse to have a drink. She even uses people as drinking partners so she won't have to drink alone. And Rainie is a full-fledge alcoholic. Lauren's pattern of behaviour now mimics Rainie's. Note how her eyes light up at the mere prospect of a drink, and her parent sub her habit, because every time she gets money from them, she spends it on drink. That's not having a good time; that's feeding a dependency.
Lauren also quit school half-way through her A-Levels. She was seventeen. At seventeen, she is legally able to drive, live away from her parents and work. Understandably, her parents expected that, if she quit school, she would get a job and contribute to the family budget - in other words, pay for her room and her share of the food bought. That's not unreasonable, especially in this day and age of hard economy. Such practices also teach people how to budget and control their money.
And, please, disabuse yourself of the notion that Max and Tanya earn a lot of money. The salon is hardly full, and Max is struggling to sell second-hand cars on a backstreet lot. He is in debt as well - hence, the asking Derek for money (ostensibly to keep his "secret" a "secret"). Speculation points to Max having possibly another wife and maybe a lovechild he's supporting. One thing's for certain, Max is not wealthy. That's why he's joined forces with Phil Mitchell to sell the stolen motors Phil fixes. Max is dicing with a prison sentence at best. Someone else earning money would help the household.
And, Dixon and klendathu - dumbasses, please ... young people can work and still have a good time. It's been done before. There's no law in the land which says poor, pitiful, hard-done-by Lauren shouldn't have to pull her weight at some sort of job during the day to pay for her partying at night. She is lazy, entitled, and rude. I can accept she may have no direction or not know what to do with her life at eighteen, but there are stop-gap jobs which youngsters do to get the money they want to spend.
There was never anyone more entitled than Lucy Beale, yet when her father abandoned her and her younger brother when he had a breakdown, she went to work and fought to keep her father's businesses afloat. Lauren would just drink the day away. Her treatment of her parents sometimes is disgusting.
It's one thing to say Lauren's parents are "allowing" her to enjoy life. She wants to be considered an adult, yet supported as if she's a child. She's a great advertisement for youth in this time. She's everything any parent wouldn't want their daughter to be.
The entire shabang of young characters on the programme leave a lot to be desired, but out of all of them, Lauren is one of the few who really need a resounding slap.
She certainly deserves a health warning - her lifestyle is a danger in itself. Guttersnipe.
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