Until a few days ago I was in the same position you almost certainly are now as regards Lindsay Lohan. I had heard of her, but I wasn't sure why, or how. I knew she was young, famous, American, possibly an actress. And I had a vague idea that she was a symbol of everything that is wrong with modern celebrity-obsessed culture. And I knew she liked leggings.

Then I spent a weekend watching several of her films (she is indeed an actress) back-to-back. The Crampton family had something of a Lohan season, a retrospective if you will, the software supplied by my nine-year-old daughter. I discovered that whatever else may be unjustly inflated about LiLo, as we cognoscenti call her, her reputation as a gifted and charismatic actress is well earned. I have to say I was rather taken by her.

So taken in fact that I put her name into Google. She was a child star at 12, and is still only a mere 21 years of age. She has, like our own Amy Winehouse, spent some time in rehab but is now reportedly getting her career back on track. And yet her youth and misfortune earn her no exemption from the most brutal abuse. She drinks too much, she doesn't eat enough, she doesn't wear sufficient clothing, sometimes (leggings notwithstanding) she even neglects to put on basic underwear, not a wise move when you spend your life clambering out of cars in front of photographers.

One or two ungentlemanly ex-lovers had spoken graphically about matters that should have remained private. An explicit video of Lohan and Calum Best was posted on the web, and yet the reaction on the gossip sites to this intrusion is one of cynicism rather than sympathy. I came across the same phenomenon when researching an article on Sienna Miller: the 18th-century idea that young actresses are little different to common prostitutes is alive and thriving through 21st-century technology. I've come to the simple but brilliant conclusion that those to blame for an obsession with celebrities are those who are obsessed with celebrities, rather than the objects of their obsession.

And yet even if LiLo really is no better than she ought to be, I still think we should be congratulating rather than castigating her. While her behaviour may occasionally lack maturity, her work exhibits standards of the highest ethical order. In Just My Luck, in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, most notably in the modern classic Mean Girls, the Lohan character delivers an impeccable moral message to her impressionable audience.

Be true to yourself, your family, your friends. Diversity is admirable. Narcissism, careerism and materialism will not make you happy. Beauty is not only skin deep. Never hide your intelligence or strength to make yourself more attractive to a man. No parent of a pre-teen girl in this strange post-feminist era could have put it better. I hope LiLo is back on our screens before long.

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