Is Taylor Momsen the Next Lindsay Lohan?

July 22, 2010 — -- For weeks, it's been the Lindsay Lohan show -- the Cannes caper, the courtroom crying, the rehab revisit, the stoic surrender. Now that she's locked up, let's move on to more pressing issues:

Who's the next Lindsay Lohan?

Meet Taylor Momsen. Like Lohan, she started acting as a child. Like Lohan, she dabbles in music. Like Lohan, she loves to party, smoke and make out with girls.

But unlike Lohan, she's a teenager.

At the tender age of 16, Momsen's already demonstrated a proclivity for thigh highs and stripper heels, cigarettes and sex toys. Her main gig: playing the problem-prone teen Jenny Humphrey on The CW's "Gossip Girl." Her side project: fronting the rock band The Pretty Reckless.

But at times, it seems like her real shtick is shock. This month, Momsen told Disorder magazine that she's "not gay but just bored of men" before adding that her best friend is her vibrator. In The Pretty Reckless' latest music video, "Miss Nothing," Momsen writhes over and under a dinner table, raccoon-eyed, barely clad, desperate to attract the attention of the bored old men trying to eat while she acts out.

In April, she told Entertainment Weekly, "I don't wanna be Courtney Love -- I wanna be Kurt Cobain." The month before that, she told Parade magazine, "I smoke, so what? Why do people give a s**t what a 16-year-old girl who they've never met does? It's not like I'm sitting there going, 'Kids, you should go buy a pack of cigarettes.'"

Clearly, she could care less about acting age-appropriate. But she's adopted Lohan's "FU" attitude (if not her manicure) a good five years before Lohan herself went off the rails. Is it all downhill from here?

Taylor Momsen: From Pretty to Punky

"It's not so different from other 16-year-olds in the sense that it's all about them," said Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington and author of a number of books on parenting, sex and relationships. "Of course, she lives in a dangerous environment and she has access to dangerous people and dangerous drugs."

And dangerous fashion. Momsen's transformation from the pink-cheeked little girl who played Cindy Lou Who in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" to the eyeliner-addicted waif who rocks out in Lucite stripper heels with a bulit-in tip jar is the stuff of most parents' nightmares.

"One of our favorite lamentations is, 'Who is putting the "mom" in Momsen?,'" said Heather Cocks, co-author of the celebrity fashion blog GoFugYourself.com, and co-chronicler of Momsen's style devolution on NYMag.com. "I don't know if she fancies it performance art, like a cross between Lady Gaga and Courtney Love, but I'm sort of terrified that it's just going to be thigh highs and a bra as soon as she turns 18. There's not much real estate left that we haven't seen already."

For the moment, Momsen's all hat, no cattle. She talks about a hardcore lifestyle but has yet to rack up the DUIs and drug charges that dragged down Lohan. If the former Catholic school girl's instruments of rebellion consist of a vibrator and ripped stockings, she might be just fine.

"Something like the vibrator comment is pure teenage chutzpah," said Schwartz. "If that was her only partner, that would be great."

"Right now, it's all tease without real Lindsay-like spiraling," mused Michael Musto, culture critic for The Village Voice. "I'm glad she's able to express herself and break the mold in a mildly punky way. She's being real and that's actually healthier than pretending to be something she's not."

One wonders, though, who Momsen will be in ten years. Lohan saved the serious acting out for her twenties; Momsen might peak before she's legal. If that happens, maybe she'll tire of trying to top herself, put on some pants, wash off the layers of eye makeup, and donate those Lucite heels to a stripper in need.

Or, she could trip down Lohan's path to Lynwood sooner rather than later.

"I think a lot of these girls are old souls by the time they're in their twenties," Schwartz said. "They've had a lot of living and it's affected their heart and their brain. We all take risks when we're 16 and we all have adventures, but they go through their life cycles so quickly."