Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Will the Persecution Never End? (A Continuing Series)

My effusive thanks to George Kelley for this link. It's an excellent article. Really. No kidding. Read it.

The Trash Princess by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Autumn 2006: "The Trash Princess
Kay S. Hymowitz

Why Americans love to hate Paris Hilton

Maybe 500 channels and an epidemic of bloggerhea mean that Americans have less of a common culture, but we all still share . . . Paris Hilton. The naughty blond heiress is, like, wallpapering our brains. Even if you don’t read the tabloids, you can’t escape her. There’s a (topless) Vanity Fair cover, a Barbara Walters interview, a best-selling single, a CD, a jewelry line, a best-selling book, a nightclub chain. Madame Tussaud has immortalized her in its wax museum. She can command $100,000 just to show up at a restaurant or club opening for an hour. She is among the top Googled people in the United States. And don’t think you can just get on a plane, go to (say) Auckland, and live Paris-free. In 2005, she was among the most popular search topics in New Zealand—not to mention Germany, Japan, and Australia. She is also a huge lure in Mexico, Turkey, France, and Sweden (so much for the enlightened sexuality of the Scandinavians). Who could top her in the fame department? Liberal commentators have dubbed estate-tax repeal “the Paris Hilton tax cut,” and the term has stuck. Madonna never had a piece of federal legislation named after her."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That really was good.

It’s not that she is a working girl willing to go too far to sell her next record album; it’s that she is above morality. She can do whatever she wants, and she’s proud to rub your nose in that fact day after day. How could you not hate someone who thinks she doesn’t have to live in the same world as the rest of us?

It reminds me of Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". I only wish Paris would have to pay the piper someday, but that seems unlikely.

Anonymous said...

You know, I must be either very alienated, or something's slightly amiss with me...I can't see her, and even her predicament as long as it's self-inflicted, as anything but trivial and dull--more to be dismissed than pitied or censured. Though she's amusingly, I guess, the anti-Gatsby...and her prominence Is more interesting than she will ever be, but in itself not compelling, either. Kinda like "Madge," Ms. Ciccone, whom she does resemble in her vacuousness and perhaps learned from.