I’ve wanted to crush Paris Hilton’s larynx ever since it debuted in the unmodulated, track-heavy and mercilessly repetitive song, “Stars are Blind.” This talentless hack clearly hired some agent, who then hired other talentless hacks to manufacture the most insignificant and irrelevant assemblages of notes and melodies into a personal trophy replete with a semi-nude, come-hither album-cover picture. But her full-time job is to model the epitome of female stupidity, material excess and the largest WASP nose sighted by humankind. Even before her album’s debut, she was a rich kid who wanted to be more than that. In a way, she is succeeding, and we must commend her for that. Hilton, through her shameless self-pimping and promotion, has fashioned herself (pun intended) into a wonderful and contradictory generational symbol – and that is not easy.
People magazine and Oprah have informed me over the years that there are many more obscenely wealthy, rotten-to-the-core heirs and heiresses barfing in the back alleys of swanky urban bars and clubs. These are the kids that have it real good. Music producer David Foster’s (the brain behind Josh Groban’s success) two stepsons got their own reality show, saw some airtime, and got canceled when it was clear that no one wanted to watch the Princes of Malibu. Then they drowned back into anonymity, back into that permanent vacation where no one ever thinks about them, until someone has to write pseudo-analytical essays on celebrity gossip for a college newspaper column. These are the kids who have it all, because no one cares enough to watch them barf, which means they can go out the next night (heck with that, the next morning even!) and do it over again. So allow me to stand up somewhat aligned with Hilton and Tinseltown and say in no more than a loud whisper: Paris Hilton is the sacrificial lamb of the constipated bourgeoisie.
Paris is the brave child-woman who proudly holds up the beacon of designer purses for all the shamefully rich young’uns out there in the world. She’s the one we love to hate, the one we want to see trip and fall, the one who stars in skanky burger commercials – and for this, she gets to walk the red carpet. Does it seem unwarranted to you? It isn’t. The girl has been slapped with a blessing and a curse, and the curse is superlatively bad.
Christopher Hitchens, the well-spoken (if not snarling) writer, is one of the only high-profile critics to support Paris through her jail debacle: “Those gloating and jeering headlines, showing a tearful child being hauled back to jail, had the effect of making me feel sick. So, you finally got the kid to weep on camera? Are you happy now?” He’s really not kidding; the Peeping Toms in all of us rushed to YouTube to catch a glimpse of a puffy-faced Paris being whisked away to the clinker once more. Nobody feels bad about it either. To the masses, she’s some battery-operated mannequin with naturally unattainable blond hair. She’s dehumanized beyond anyone we’ve gawked at before, including Britney Spears.
I shed a silent tear like I never have, in Britney Spears’ interview with Matt Lauer last year. She was a train wreck. She popped her bubble gum, brushed back her stringy hair, her denim skirt barely visible under her very pregnant belly, I kept turning over the phrase, “Lord, how the mighty have fallen.” Then Lauer asked her what so many gossip-mongers had on their minds: Was she a good mom? In tears, she said, “I know I’m a good mom.” She looked pathetic.
And yet, I can do no more than sigh at Hilton. “Poor girl,” I can say. But damn, I can’t feel bad for her. All I can do is recognize that being a leader, even leading a herd of walking Burberry bling, is tough. It’s tough being the chick who has to deal with the fame that comes from people who thinks she doesn’t deserve it. Perhaps she can find some solace from a peer. Spears said to Lauer during the same interview, “There will be an ‘Oops number 100.’ There’ll be plenty more oopses. I’m not perfect. I’m human.”
Nandini Jammi is a sophomore English major. She can be reached at jammin@umd.edu.
