For some reason, we’ll always have Paris

June 8, 2007

I don’t always agree with the WaPo’s Howard Kurtz, but today’s column about a certain media phenomenon was exactly right.

OMG Paris Hilton got out of jail early, like, how did that happen and who does she think she is and how can being confined to a totally rad Hollywood mansion really be, um, punishment?

Fer shure, she gets away with everything. The Internet sex tape thing. The wearing-no-underwear thing. The stupid driving-with-a-suspended-license thing. Now she gets out of the slammer in three days for some teensy weensy medical problem? Like, a crying jag? Her face broke out or something? I mean, really!

Television is just going bonkers over this famous-for-being-famous party girl. Charlie Gibson! Katie Couric! Every cable show on the planet! Lawyers shouting at each other: Miscarriage of justice! No, she was persecuted for being a celebrity! You idiot, she’s being coddled!

Forget immigration, Iraq and — what’s that guy’s name? — Libby. We can all have a national meltdown now over Paris! Maybe Bush should pardon her so she doesn’t have to keep wearing that designer ankle bracelet for the next 40 days.

Unfortunately, Kurtz really wasn’t exaggerating.

I looked up the broadcasts from last night’s network newscasts, to see how the Big Three covered yesterday’s events. It wasn’t pretty.

ABC World News Tonight’s top story was the immigration-reform legislation in Congress, to which the network devoted two minutes and 55 seconds. The next longest “news” item of the broadcast was Paris Hilton getting released from prison, which garnered two minutes and 45 second. On the news program, the Paris Hilton development received more attention than the war czar’s concerns about Iraq, discussions on global warming at the G8 meeting, and Congress passing a stem-cell research bill combined.

CBS Evening News’ top story was Bush and Putin discussing missile defense, to which the network devoted two minutes and 35 seconds. The next longest item was, you guessed it, Paris Hilton, which garnered two minutes and 25 seconds. The Hilton “news” got more coverage on CBS than a roadside bomb killing a U.S. soldier, the immigration bill, and passage of the stem-cell bill combined — times two.

And earning my eternal gratitude, NBC Nightly News didn’t give the Paris Hilton news even one second on last night’s broadcast. Literally, it didn’t come up. (Maybe because it was getting blanket coverage on MSNBC and NBC Nightly News didn’t think it was necessary?)

Look, media outlets everywhere, this person isn’t even a celebrity. She’s famous for being famous, which is perpetuated by the media feeding her fame. This is truly insane.

Jeebus, when ABC and CBS devote more airtime to some heiress’ mundane legal trouble than key international events, you might as well give up on watching television news altogether.

Oh wait, I already did that.

On the bright side, though, the judge overrode the Sheriff’s department and ordered her back to jail.

Judge orders Paris Hilton back to jail

  • The Hilton “news” got more coverage on CBS than a roadside bomb killing a U.S. soldier, the immigration bill, and passage of the stem-cell bill combined — times two.

    That’s shameful. Shame on you CBS. Shame on you MSM.

    ****
    And speaking of non sequiturs, this reminds me of that story where somebody asked George Burns what his doctor thought about the fact he drank and smoked every day, to which Burns replied “My doctor’s dead.”

    (It’s hot out and it’s Friday.)

  • “Mom, mom! It’s not right!!”, she wailed.

    The cameras failed to record her next sentence, which might have been something like, “I gave that fat sheriff the best b-j of his life and I still can’t get out of jail???”

    Hey, sweetheart. You’re rich. Deal with it.

  • Haik –

    It was Johnny Carson asking the 90-year old Burns about smoking a box of cigars a day, drinking a pitcher of martinis a day, and running around with beautiful young women. Great comeback. Great role model.

  • Oh, so Gen. Pace WASN’T replaced by Paris Hilton?

    Wow, I need to pay better attention when I have the t.v. on.

  • Fortunately, this pathetic wench is not in Baghdad. she could get blown to smithereens by a roadside bomb planted by an insurgent, to which I would have to say “the insurgent is my friend.”

    I do not want to wind up in an Egyptian prison because some guy in Baghdad does the world a favor by blowing up Paris Hilton….

  • I like this statement by California Attorney General Jerry Brown, “It does hold up the system to ridicule when the powerful and the famous get special treatment” At least someone has their head screwed on straight.

  • I’d rather have Paris than the Swift Boat Vets.

    A shallow media is better than a lying media.

    If you can’t report anything right, don’t report anything at all.

  • She’s famous for being rich, sort of attractive & willing to have sex in public. She also seems to get other young celebs to let loose (Hi Britney).
    I think the sex, public nudity, and general rich party slut is how she really got famous. C’mon folks, were on the internet, we know what’s out there.

    At least she’s no O.J.

  • Well she’s got plenty of supporters in Washington DC always going on about the need for the Paris Hilton Tax Cut

  • Thank god for the CBC here in Canada. While they have devoted a few minutes to the “story”; at least it’s at the bottom of the news.

  • They are going to totally wet themselves now that she is going back to the pokey. It will be their finest hours.

  • Lee Baca needs to be fired for treating a BJ from Paris as a “Get out of Jail” card.

  • I thought it was a minor story when she got sentenced and when she went to jail, but I thought it became an important story once she get let out early. A celeb gets let out of jail because she doesn’t like it and gets “punished” by being forced to stay at home for 40 days? If it was you or me, the chances of that happening are zero. So I think the righting of this miscarriage of justice is an important story because it shows that, in a least this one instance, the rich and famous don’t get let off easy.

  • I love Paris in the springtime, I love Paris in the fall.”

    But I don’t like Ms. Hilton, at all.

    But at least in this era of vapid media channels which have abandoned journalism, we can have a story which everyone agrees is pointless and about nothing, yet takes up all the available air time. We can have no finer demonstration of what TV news is really all about. And since Ms. Hilton’s apparent only function on the planet is to act outrageously on videotape, she’s just doing her job, isn’t she?

    I’m glad she’s going back to jail. I think I can’t be the only one in America who, when hearing she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, thought “It will probably do her good.”

    It also shows the difference between LA and DC: none of Libby’s supporters were smart enough to suggest he might get a rash or have a nervous breakdown.

  • Setting aside all the multiple indignations I can allow myself to feel, I still have a primordial fascination with celebrity. I like to imagine that I am a little bit above common abject enthrallment, but there is an identification challenge that involves me. I find myself trying to imagine what it must be like to be so publicly exposed and scrutinized. It must be quite similar to being a politician. It’s certainly very different from what most people experience.

    The fascination I share with masses of people in any extreme experience a fellow human being undergoes definitely involves an exercise in imaginative identification. For some reason it is intriguing to put ourselves in that other individual’s shoes — whether it be extreme misfortune or extreme good fortune. There must be some survival benefit in running these self-referential scenarios. Unless you have a cripplingly deterministic of life’s destiny, you have to acknowledge the fate you observe in others could, one day, be a fate you have to deal with yourself. I think that’s the basis of our fascination with extreme experiences: a kind of conjectural preparation for dealing with a similar experience. It may never happen, but if it did it would do no harm to have thought about it beforehand. And, let’s face it, it happens to some, and often unexpectedly and unintentionally.

    What would we do if someone pointed a gun at us? How would we deal with our execution, if that befell us? Shirley McLean overcame her fear of flying by repeatedly imagining herself in a plane crash. How did the people in the 9/11 planes face imminent and certain death? How would you feel winning the lottery? How does it feel to be elected President? How does it feel to lose the election? How does it feel when you lose your home and family in a hurricane? How do you handle pop stardom? What does it feel like to have your intimate, private sex life spread around the Internet. What does it feel like to lose your fortune and beg on a street corner?

    Any one of these situations could happen to anyone of us. Some ride the wave with aplomb, others fall apart and disappear. Life is a bitch, but we’re curious and instinctively try to be prepared by observing and following the fortunes of others. I think it’s really all quite natural.

    As I said, aside from whatever indignation or sense of offended justice we feel. It’s basic learning through curiosity and imagination. Ah, these Friday evenings…

  • Paris Hilton is no one important. She has not contributed to the betterment of society, though she is filthy rich and could make a huge impact. Her parents apparently have coddled her, not demanding that she become a productive member of society (I don’t know much about them, but it sounds like that might describe them as well.)

    Paris Hilton drove while drunk, then drove while her license was suspended (when she could more than afford a chaffeur) which is what got her in trouble. I suppose she is now an example to those who think they’re above the law… maybe that’s her purpose now?

  • Unless you have a cripplingly deterministic of life’s destiny, you have to acknowledge the fate you observe in others could, one day, be a fate you have to deal with yourself. — Goldilocks,@18

    Do I really *have to* acknowledge it? What are my chances of being an heiress to millions? Both my parents are dead already and left me less than 50K between them. What are my chances of being 26 and pretty? 31 years gone. What are my chances of being nailed for driving drunk? Zero, because I *either* drink *or* drive, never both. What are my chances of having some sheriff taking it upon himself to let me out of the pokey because I’m young, pretty, rich and famous? My imagination has just reached its limits and disappeared in gales of laughter.

    I don’t see any possibility at all of my fate and hers crossing, at any point. It’s, *definitely not*, a “there but for the grace of God go I” situation and never could be. Which is why I don’t have any interest in the whole ho-ha, while some of the other examples you quote (what would I do if faced with a gun, if on a plane taken over by terrorists, if thrown into a black-hole of a prison) are something I’ve contemplated often…

  • Hannah and libra, I’ve read what you said and I take your points. I knew when I tried to look into what makes a drama like Paris Hilton’s newsworthy I would be setting a cat among the pigeons. I took the risk because a) as CB says, it is given disproportionate attention by the media, and b) I cannot deny my own curiosity about such pantomimes. I also felt that if I examined my own interest in such stories I’d understand better why there seems to be a widespread popular interest in these things. After all, as human beings we’ve got much more in common than we usually acknowledge. Knowing yourself helps you to know others.

    It’s certain that the media, in shaping the news, are capitalizing on and stimulating our prurient, voyeuristic tendencies. It’s also certain that they do that for commercial reasons. The two are linked. If people generally had no or little interest in the lives and dramas of the rich and famous, there would be no commercial opportunity for the media to exploit. That they are able to pander to the publics’ curiosities is evidence that the public has these curiosities. I took that as read (though maybe you have a different view on it) and so focused my attention on why people have such interests.

    I’m sure it’s been studied, like everything has, but instead of researching the topic I just looked into my own experience of these kinds of stories. I’ve always been interested in what makes people tick so I read a lot about the diverse situations people find themselves in and how they deal with them. I can’t help imagining what it must be like to go through the traumas people I read about have gone through. It helps me to understand them and me. I’m sure, but I may be wrong, that a lot of people are drawn to other people’s sagas in a similar way for similar reasons. Who you choose to read about, of course, depends on what you’re interested in.

    I was trying to think about why we are like this, and I came to the idea that, at one level, it is driven by some kind of survival instinct. OK, I appreciate that, in this life, neither you nor I expect to have any experience remotely comparable to Paris Hilton’s. But, because it’s so unusual, we’re fascinated by, even if only to reject it.

    I’m interested in it because, as a fellow human being, I know she has feelings and suffers just like you and me. That’s involving and it concerns me. I also know that George Walker Bush has feelings and suffers, but it doesn’t mean I support what he thinks, says and does. The impact of Mr Bush on people’s lives is immensely more damaging, I’m pretty sure, than that of Ms Hilton, so it’s a little easier to empathize with her and her predicaments. By the way, I feel no jealousy about her wealth, partly because I can see that it brings her less happiness than my relative poverty brings me.

    I don’t think Paris Hilton matters very much, other than as an object lesson on how not to waste your time and money. To that extent she might actually be helping other young people to avoid her pitfalls. She’s young, and she’ll grow out of it as we all do. I don’t begrudge her her privilege either. She’s earned it in previous lives. Now she has to learn how to use it better in the service of others.

    I suspect that’s about another ten cats I’ve thrown into the yard!

    Paris Hilton is no one important. — Hannah. Paris Hilton is important to Paris Hilton, as Goldilocks is important to Goldilocks and Hannah is important to Hannah. She has not contributed to the betterment of society. Give her time. A lot of young people don’t, but that doesn’t mean they don’t ever.

    libra: Do I really *have to* acknowledge it [that the fate you observe in others could, one day, be a fate you have to deal with yourself]? No, you don’t have to. One experience you’ll definitely have to deal with that you observe in others is death. Aside from that, the operative word is ‘could’. I guess it’s possible to go through an entire life without anything unusual happening. But, tell me this, libra, why are films about love and romance so popular?

  • goldilocks #21: I suppose it’s possible that Paris Hilton may one day do something to better the world, but given her parents’ reaction to her current predicament, it may be a long shot. Her mother is clearly enabling her. And I’m speaking as one who has had to give some tough love to a difficult (though not criminal) child (now young adult), so I know something of that kind of relationship.

  • Yes, Hannah, you’re right. From the truly little I know about her and her current story, her mother / parents, her wealth and her fame are doing her no good. Just shows you that money and fame are not everything and can be a big obstacle.

    It seems a very strange story about her jail time. This post and comments has got me really interested, so I’m off now to check it all out.

  • Paris Hilton enjoyed her first post-prison shopping spree last week. The hotel heiress – who arrived in Los Angeles after a relaxing beach break in Maui

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