(Photo of Gia with visible track marks)
Gia Carangi’s story is one we commonly associate with an HBO movie starring Angelina Jolie. However, the sad part is that this tragic tale is one that is true. It is a story beginning in Philadelphia with a broken family and a little girl longing for love. The divorce of her parents left Gia bouncing between two homes, resulting in a lack of discipline. She told friends she felt abandoned by her parents and yearned for attention. She experimented with alcohol, broke curfews, and was overall rebellious. On top of that she tried marijuana and pills to cope gain attention. She also decided in her early teen years that she was Bi-sexual, in fact it was the only thing in her life that she was confident about.
Gia’s mother tried to intervene and attempted counseling but Gia was already on a destructive path. Blessed with a beautiful face and body, Gia’s mother hoped that getting her daughter off the streets and into a career as a model would straighten her out. At 18, after being discovered she moved to New York City to pursue modeling.
Lonely and beautiful, Gia still desired love and attention from anywhere she could get it. Unfortunately for her, this affection came from the drug users and partiers in New York nightclubs. She admitted to using drugs initially for recreation but later it became a part of life. The 70’s was a bad time for a young girl to try and find herself in New York City, especially on the party circuit. She now identified as a lesbian and endured various relationships. To cope with the loss of girlfriends and the death of the few people close to her, Gia resorted to heroin. She spent all her money on drugs and was even photographed with track marks on her arms.
At twenty-one, Gia was dropped from her agency and vanished from the modeling world. At the same time she was arrested for drunk driving, began dating a female junkie, and moved in with her mother. Gia attempted rehab, but the death of another friend caused her to relapse. The fallen model reemerged in the public spotlight with permanent track marks and cysts on her back from frequent drug abuse. At age twenty-three Gia returned to treatment again and failed. She moved to Philadelphia with her girlfriend and worked as a cashier in a supermarket. The next few years consisted of prostitution, rape, and drug use which eventually led to Gia contracting AIDS through a dirty needle. While she was dying Gia was the center of her mother’s attention, and friends say this was the point when she finally got what she had always wanted. In November of 1986, Gia Carangi died at the age of twenty-six.
GIA VS. KOREN
Koren in "Smashed", was very much like Gia. Even though her parent's were not divorced, they were never really there, and if they were home, Koren's parents did not really repremand or teach her about life until it was too late. Like Gia, Koren also abused alcohol at a young age. As a teen she broke curfews and did the typical rebelling against her family. They were young, intelligent, and undoubtedly beautiful. Yer another similarity was their questionable sexual orientation and inability to maintain friendships. These shortcomings left them wanting more. Ultimately, these girls were on a quest for acceptance, attention, and love. Koren and Gia both shared opportunity. These girls had all of the tools at hand to become successful. Koren had college and cheerleading, but she threw that away. Very similar to the way Gia threw her modeling career away.
The differences are minimal but even the slightest difference has an impact. The most apparent deviation was type of drugs used. Koren's poison was alcohol, whereas Gia used anything she could get, later identifying heroin as her drug of choice. Their family structures were also different. Koren’s parents were absent but still married. Gia was abandoned by her mother at one point, endured a divorece, and was a frequent witness to fights. Regardless, both girls still seemed to be neglected. As I mentioned before, sexuality was also an issue for both girls. However, Koren maintained a heterosexual lifestyle even though it was not successful while, Gia was confident in her bisexuality. Part of her intense drug use could be attributed to the fact the bar culture was and still is a big deal for meeting people, especially since she identified as bisexual. The fact that Gia lived during the 70’s, the era of club drugs, made it almost inevitable that she would use. Both of these girls were on a path of destruction, but luckily for Koren, she won the battle. Unfortunately for Gia, she did not. The fact that there are numerous similarities in these situations is not surprising, because chains of events like these are not uncommon. The scariest part is that everyone can find a piece of themselves in Koren or Gia. Gia Carangi died right before Koren was born, her story is famous, yet it did not seem to impact Koren's decisions. I'm curious as to the effect stories like these have on young people, or our we just wasting our time with drug and alcohol education. It seems that experience is the "best" way to learn these days.
Links: The Gia Carangi Project: http://www.thegiacarangiproject.com/
Zailckas, Koren. Smashed: The Story of a Drunken Girlhood. Viking Adult. 2005.
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