While I agree with the initial media coverage of the her going to jail, I think her subsequent release does warrent at least some coverage. I haven't been following it more than what's been posted here, but it seems as though there was some corruption involved. If there was, or if there may have been some corruption, I would think that it warrents news coverage.
We scoff at Paris, but we're her clients
Waleed Aly
June 10, 2007
SANCTIMONIOUS contempt for Paris Hilton is easy. This narrative is familiar by now: she glorifies and glamorises all that is deleterious in society; her apparent stupidity is celebrated almost as much as her ravenous sexuality; the heiress to a fortune, her only job appears to be party-going; she has no discernible talent and produces nothing of note, except the odd homemade sex video.
Here, then, is the quintessential object of highbrow derision: undeservedly rich, unashamedly vacuous, and unabashedly raunchy. Paris is truly famous for being famous. But such fashionable moralising is often a self-exonerating mask. By passing judgement on Paris we allow ourselves to pretend that we are not, as a society, so gleefully transfixed by her. To admit jealousy — or worse, admiration — at the way she saunters through celebrity life would be too obviously demeaning. It feels better to condemn.
Meanwhile, we insist on consuming her. It's difficult to remember a week passing without Paris invading our news stream. Yet we keep our eyes fixed on the screen and our heads buried in our magazines. In truth, we are not Paris' critics. We are her clients.
If proof is required, the past week has provided it. Last Monday, Paris finally entered prison to serve half of a 45-day sentence for driving with a suspended licence. Three days later, she was released on house arrest, only to be re-institutionalised. This much, I confess, is worthy of mild interest. But no more.
It is not altogether surprising that Paris might fall foul of the law, and a prison sentence measured in days is not a grave punishment. It's almost a retreat.
Yet we have been subjected to daily news updates of the most mundane nature. "Paris survives first night in jail" boomed one headline, nakedly highlighting how hard-hitting and substantive this story was not. Mercifully, we were reassured, she was allowed to keep her hair extensions in prison because they were "tightly wound". Who'd have thought?
Day two brought us news of an outbreak of staph infection bacteria in the prison. The situation rapidly deteriorated. Paris paid for a visit from her psychiatrist "in the first sign she may not be coping". Can reporters possibly maintain this frenetic pace for three weeks?
Yet, whatever the inanity, we continue to watch, download and read. Surely this has been the low-water mark in our Paris obsession. Voyeuristic interest in sex videos, even if contemptible, is at least comprehensible. But this story is not even titillating. It is simply empty: the news equivalent of belly button lint.
Or perhaps it is worse. Perhaps our capacity to find interest in even the most mind-numbing celebrity stories reflects a more profound stagnation in us: that we are increasingly not a people who do, but rather a people who watch. Maybe our day-to-day lives are now so burdened that we are no longer able to live them fully. Instead we live them vicariously through others.
Whatever the case, it is not healthy. Our scoffing at Paris more truthfully condemns ourselves. It is difficult to escape the thought that our obsession with celebrity banality is an admission of existential defeat.