Hitchens on Hilton

Yes, what I like about the Hitchens article is not so much his characterization of Hilton herself as his pointing out how twisted and pathological the public obsession with Paris Hilton is. People DO get off on seeing her suffer, there’s no doubt about it. Whether she brought it on herself or not, I think it’s twisted that we as a society are so voyeuristic about celebrities and their personal issues. And I do think it has to do with envy. Look at Britney Spears. She was the media darling for a few years, when she was younger and thinner - now she gains weight and is photographed in a few less-than-flattering pictures, and all of a sudden she’s FAT, TRASHY, and DISGUSTING, and she deserves the ridicule for dating the “Wigger” Kevin Federline and getting herself “knocked up.” In other words, it’s reality hate porn for the masses.

I’ve always thought this.

Chris Hitchens created Paris Hilton’s media image? I don’t think he’s ever mentioned her name before this column.

Are you under the impression that the only thing she’s known for is one sex tape? That’s she’s been saturating the entertainment media for years all on that one event? And what public humilation are you talking about, exactly? Having to go to jail like everyone else who receives a suspended sentence and then blows it? Or having the media focused on her when she has to don her mandated sack cloth and ashes? Are we only supposed to watch her when she wants? What part of going to jail to serve the sentence you’ve been sentenced to serve in inherently humiliating? Is it simply impossible to do so with some degree of maturity, grace, and professionalism? Or was that just too much to ask of her, the poor child?

Are you serious? Because if you are, then we don’t have the same vocabulary or frame of reference for any sort of productive discussion.

What public hatred? What humiliation? Which part of it was she supposed to be spared, the part where she receives the media attention she has been courting and exploiting for years, or the part where she goes to jail for a crime? Is all negative publicity de facto “hatred” and “humiliation”?

Are you kidding me? Imagine the media frenzy if HRH Saint Diana had every been hauled off to the pokey! The mind boggles, and that’s with a person the public liked – no, adored. And they still would have tuned in for that Ride of Shame. And you continue to want to to try to dissect an aggregate of worthless behavior into single episodes of excusable behavior. The fact is, Hilton has assiduously courted public attention for years – and profited off it quite nicely, apparently – and it is unrealistic to expect that same public to tactfully avert its eyes when something unpleasant happens to her.

I can’t decide if it raises or lowers my respect for any author or the seriousness of his work when he uses simulacrum in a sentence describing his reaction to watching Paris Hilton’s hardcore sex video.

well, that’s all I know about her but my question isn’t waht is she 'known" for but why is she hated?

Does she control what the media reports on? And what other event is there? I don’t pay any attention to the entertainment media. I didn’t know she was known for anything other than being an heiress and having a sex tape. Neither of those things is either immoral or illegal as far as I know. I’ll take your word for it that she courts the media, but so what? how does courting the media make her evil?

The salacious, wall-to-wall coverage of a non-event. The sadistic, mocking tone in the media (and on this board) about her crying in court.

Actually, that’s bullshit. Most people would NOT have gone to jail. Hilton went to jail for being a celebrity.

Why do you want to watch her at ALL?

It’s being followed around by cameras so sickos at home can get off on seeing a skinny rich bitch get degraded that’s inherently humiliating (aside from the fact that the jail time was bullshit).

How does one go to jail with “professionalism?” what does that mean?

Nobosy’s asking anything of HER, I’m just observing that the salacious pleasure taken in her degradation by the public was more disgusting than anything Paris herself did.

I think this is a cop-out response. If you’re going to intimate that something is immoral, don’t wave your hands when someone asks you why. it makes it look like you don’t really have an answer.

Are you kidding me?

Pretty much all of it. maybe she could have paid a small fine or something. The rest was bullshit. The media spank coverage was the worst, though.

Anyone who courts publicity is evil and deserves to be publicly humiliated?

SAhe went to jail for being a celebrity.

All the coverage on FRIDAY was.

I doubt it.

“worthless behavior?” Hhat does that mean? Aside from the DUI, what behavior has she engaged in which requires an “excuse?”

Is irrelevant.

I think it’s indecent to leer. She isn’t Hitler.

And I asked you to explain what you mean by “hated”? Followed around? Reported on? She asks for it! It’s how she makes money. She is fundamentally a creature of and about publicity; that’s all she does, it’s all she is, publicly speaking.

Of course she does. As someone else already asked, when’s the last time you heard about Natalie Portman flashing her twat or driving drunk or getting into cat fights with other starlets?

I’m not going to waste my time educating you on something as worthless as the history of Paris Hilton. Suffice it to say she has successfully made herself famous for being famous. Again, if you make a career out of figuratively shreiking LOOK AT ME! then IMO you don’t get to complain about people paying attention to you.

Who said she was evil?

What non-event was that? A celebrity going to jail is not an event? Who decides that – You? Don’t you think you should know who the hell she is before making that ruling for the rest of us?

That’s it? A mocking tone is IYO sadism? Suffice it to say my mileage varies.

Actually, that’s bullshit. She was sentenced for violating probation.

What do YOU care? Having set yourself up as the arbiter of what constitutes a news event, are you now going to set yourself up as an arbiter of what is entertaining or informative? Who died and made you the entertainment news God? And you didn’t answer my question.

This is a tautological non-answer: It is humiliating because it is degrading, fodder for “sickos.” But if I do not acknowledge your determination that it it is degrading, it follows that neither do I find it inherently humiliating. And you devalue the term “sicko” by using it in such a frivolous context, just as Hitchens minimalizes kiddie porn and child abuse by his completely ridiculous analogies.

Now you’re just nitpicking. If you didn’t understand the use of the term “professionalism” in this context, how about 'maturity" and “grace”? No response there either?

IYO, you mean. And why is nobody asking anything of HER? Where is the expectation that she suck it up and deal with the hard knocks, much less the expectation that, in a larger sense, she make something of herself and her gifts other than a spectacle?

I don’t give a rat’s ass if you consider it a cop-out or not, though FTR I never said anything about morality. I don’t answer questons like “but what’s wrong with fucking a goat?” or “why shouldn’t have my pussy on public display?” This board taught me long ago that a person whose worldview leads them to ask such questions, genuinely or not, is not in the same book that I am, much less on the same page, and it is not worth my time, cheap though it is, to try to find common ground because there isn’t any.

No. Would you care to answer the question in a way that is factual and not tautological?

Yeah, blah blah. This is all your O. I obviously don’t share it, so you can doubt whatever you want.

I never said worthless behavior required an excuse; I said it was worthless. What behavior? This behavior: " The CAUSE is every twat-flashing picture, every spat with another starlet over boyfriends, every TV show or commercial where she’s allowed herself to be portrayed as a useless empty-headed socialite, every porny video, every bullshit envelope-opening she attended to utter “That’s hott”, every telepone call to the media asking that the media leave her alone. For years her behavior has screamed LOOK AT ME! while she has done absolutely nothing of value with her assets, both financial and in terms of notoriety." Or do I repeat myself?

Only if by “irrelevant” you mean “completely relevant.” People are looking at her now because she has made a career for years of making people look at her. If that were not the case – if she had a history of living life as a private person, or at least trying to – people probably would be more inclined to grant her more privacy now.

Well, it’s certainly not completely decent to leer. Not our collective shining moment, I concede, though I can’t work up much shame about it. But also, manifestly, nothing like kiddie porn or child abuse. But you are absolutely correct: She certainly isn’t Hitler. You got me there. :slight_smile:

I’ll tell you why responsible adults dislike her: because young girls think she is someone to be emulated. They admire her. And she deliberately, publicly presents herself as stupid, spoiled, and slutty. I don’t even necessarily believe she IS those things. What I’m saying is, that is the image she sells, and she’s made a ton of money of it. I’m not saying, “Won’t you think of the children?” nor that she should go to jail because of her fucked up media image, so don’t try to twist my words into saying that. I’m simply answering your question about why people hate her. Her values are really screwed up and some people don’t appreciate the promulgation of “vapid and wasted” as “cool media idol.”

Yes and no. She can’t completely control it anymore, but no one would know who she was, and she wouldn’t be notorious as an intoxicated, bare assed rich spoiled party girl if she didn’t sell that image to the media. It has backfired on her, which sucks for her and is completely idiotic, but is the other side of the machine that made her rich(er).

She had a pretty well known TV show called The Simple Life. Google it yourself for some more information on this person you feel the need to so stridently defend without adequate information on who the hell she even is.

Drinking/smoking pot and driving, both immoral. Making racial slurs and mocking poor people? Pretty bad too. Blowing off court appointed conseling? Maybe immoral, maybe not, but not in her favor. Creating an entire multimedia pulic image based on being dim, rich, and high? I personally wish it would go away.

That is such a load, man. I had a friend get mandatory counseling to maintain his probation on a 90 day sentence. He blew it off and was sent back for the full 90 days. No half sentence, no medical release, no nothing. He had a kid to support too. I know you’ll trot out your TV lawyers, as if they have no agenda in defending her. In my experience, you tick off the judge and seem scornful of his decisions, he will send your ass back to jail. Why should it be different for her?

I personally don’t. But I do listen to NPR and peruse Yahoo! news, and she’s been on both. Also on TV news shows… well nigh unavoidable if you are at all paying attention.

Screaming in the courtroom, crying, coming late to court, whining about how unfair it is, that seems like a proportionate response to a 23 day sentence that she knew was coming? It seemed to me like a spoiled brat who can’t take her lumps.

Oh, come ON. People being glad that an annoying person gets a smack down is not the same as salacion pleasure and vile, disgusting behavior. You’re indulging in some puzzling hyperbole here.

Spank coverage? Is that a term of art with which I’m not familiar?

You really aren’t paying attention, are you? You’ve become wedded to this Defend Paris POV and now are too entrenched to see any other view. I agree that the media coverage is lame and is taking attention from more important things, such as, oh, ANYTHING. But that’s the dark side of all the attention that made her a fortune. I thought the media orgy over Princess Diana’s death was just as disgusting, even if it was adulation and not degradation. Fame… what you get is no tomorrow, and all that.

Ah, no. Please get over this idea.

There is something between jacking off to her downfall and what you’re doing, which is heroically, quixotically defending someone who has much better paid defenders, interestly who chose not to appeal this sentence you say is so unfair. Oh yeah, and moralizing while painting anyone who disagrees with you as a media-masturbating monster. A little schadenfreude, an object lesson to people who think she’s cool, not the same as making her into Hitler. Also, based strictly on Godwin’s Law, you’ve overinvested in this argument and lost it for yourself right here.