A Disciplined Celebrity

Maybe there's still hope for America.

Celebrity headlines are filled with the sad tales of young women who used to be attractive and are now only noted for their friendly encounters with drugs, alcohol, prison, and food (or lack of it).

It's too early to say if 16-year-old Nancy Drew star Emma Roberts, the infamous Julia's niece, will achieve the same popularity status of Lohan or Hilton, but it's not too early to say that if she does, she's got a better chance of surviving with dignity intact.

Why? Parents who aren't afraid to discipline.

She got her cell phone taken away for a week "for talking sassy to her mother." (usatoday.com)

USA Today commenter cambel noted,

thank god her mother is actually disciplining her when she acted like a brat. Sounds like she will turn out ok. If only Lohans mother had tried that once in a while her daughter wouldn't have turned into a coked-out unemployable laughingstock."

Mandy Moore is strikingly absent from the celebrity antics of her peers, although since she accidentally became the poster girl for young Christian women everywhere after A Walk to Remember, followed by her large role in the brilliant but blasphemous comedy Saved, it's hard to say where she now stands in the opinion of the public eye. (How many people will buy her new album that releases Tuesday? How many people even know that she's still a recording artist?)

But if it's too late for Moore, could Emma Roberts be the next role model for impressionable young women? Or are cell-phone privileges that relevant of a punishment? Does this little incident really merit a prediction of her Hollywood success?

I don't know, and I'm not one to be overly optimistic, but considering the trails blazed by those before, I'll be rooting for her.

And I suppose Dakota Fanning's right behind her...