I get sick to my stomach every time someone on television says the words, ‘……and Paris Hilton is going to jail/was put in jail/just got out of jail!’ because within a fraction of a second, the air swells with the sounds of cheering and clapping. All those people, cheering together because why? Someone got their due?
I look around at the real problems in the world and wish people would invest a fraction of the energy they put into caring about Paris and Lindsey and Britney into something much more worthy of their time. I know a number of great causes and with the combined strength of a few million people, man we could do some good!
I don’t mean to come across all high-n-mighty. I enjoy a good Go Fug Yourself just like the next person. But where the one seems like a jab at a fashion choice or a bad hair day, this feels like mob mentality when everyone across the country is thinking and feeling ill of a particular person. How can that person ever hope to be able to move past it? Isn’t that energy damaging?
I realize that in this case, Paris has snubbed her nose at the law and conventionality many, many times. I also realize that she is not generally portrayed as a kind person and has made many a public mistake. She may truly be a mean person. But, I doubt it. If you are religious, she’s your sister. If you’re not, she’s still a human being. A very young, sometimes stupid and surely immature human being. And I would tend to blame her permissive parents much harsher than her. But, who can say, really? I don’t know any of them personally.
In my experience with my own life and with my own kids, if a person is continually reminded over and over how they screwed up, they don’t improve very fast. It’s not helpful, is what I’m saying. Now, increase that by the size of America. What kind of chance do these girls have of really turning things around? Would we let them change or take their attempts seriously anyway?
The insatiable thirst we Americans get for the scoop on our celebrities is truly disgusting to me sometimes. We cheer them on, encouraging them to be more bizarre and get more attention, and then we turn on them after we use them up. Like an old tube of toothpaste but with less mint flavor. And then we mock them and jeer at them. It makes me sad.
“It’s the insatiable thirst we Americans get for…” fill-in-the-blank that gets me. Any and everything is hyped these days, and it appeals to our meanest, basest instincts. We’re no different from those who gathered to watch public hangings or throw rotten eggs at people in the stocks. You can–I do–say it’s human nature, but it is really disgusting. It taps right into our shadow selves, and allows us to glorify our so-called better choices. Blech!!!!!!
Hi Leah,
I have to agree with you. The morning newspaper that arrived right after she was first sentenced a couple of weeks ago gave my brother a huge kick, and my reaction was that I felt sorry for her, even though I don’t think much of her as an individual. I felt the same way when Martha Stewart went to jail. People felt such a maniacal sense of glee at her incarceration, and I just couldn’t help but feel how sick it all really was, with all the other REAL injustices happening in the world.
Brilliant. You hit the nail on the head, exactly. I am in high school and know my fair share of students that are the products of their parents. I am not a fan of Paris, but I am also not a hater. I do not feel it is a productive use of my energy. I tend to feel bad for her, because it just seems she was given too much too early. She does not know how to be a real girl, a real person. She lives in a distorted, unhealthy celebrity reality.A celebrity reality that unfortunately, too many of us feed into. I admit it, I do too at times.
The whole “circus” surrounding the Paris arrest makes me feel ill. Like Laura, I’m not a fan, but neither am I a hater. Though I didn’t grow up with a fraction of wealth she has, I was young and stupid once, too. I pity her. And if I were in her situation, I’d probably have a severe panic attack or whatever it was that cut short her jail time, too.
You are an amazingly good human. I think Paris is a young woman who’s never had anyone guide and protect her from her own impulses. It is very sad.
Paris just insults people’s ideas of justice and fairness and hard work, and because of the paparazzi and the people who love gossip, it is constantly in our faces. It’s the whole “Money for nothin'” syndrome. Plus she has no definable talents, though her reality show was apparently quite popular. Then she breaks some laws and finally is going to have to pay a price. Then she seems to get off scot free. But then! Redemption! The criminal gets her comeuppance.
It actually plays out like a scripted drama, which is why it captures us so, I believe.
This is why I don’t watch much t.v. news…. or read those magazines. I frankly don’t care what celebrities do. Thank god NPR has pretty much eschewed coverage, except for the occassional mention but without the maniacal clapping and cheering.
Do people really think this is important? or is it the “liberal” haha ha media that is feeding them this drivel to distract them from the real issues.
I agree. I barely know who she is and have much difficulty trying to understand why she has all this hate directed at her when there are these monsters in the whitehouse that need hating.
I agree. I barely know who she is and have much difficulty trying to understand why she has all this hate directed at her when there are these monsters in the Whitehouse that the hatred would better serve.
Bossy takes exception due to this: it’s not just about watching a celebrity go down in flames, Bossy was cheering because it was a Drunk Driving case. Celebrities are often exempt from this most important standard, and if serving time keeps her skinny ass from climbing behind the wheel again while intoxicated, Bossy’s all for that.
Thank you! I am grappling with the same issues. I tried a gossip diet but just like any diet that is extreme, I failed immediately. I came up with the “gossip is good” campaign instead. I’ll never stop with the numbing brain candy so I might as well try and link it to a positive. For instance, Page Six was chock full of break-ups the other day but it also had a blurb about Ben Affleck and Second Harvest. I have a balanced blog diet I’ve been working on too. Just to get the right amount of vitamins and minerals in order to stay a thinking person and enjoy my People Mag too. Join the challenge! I’m adding your site to the diet.
http://notthatidontlovemykids.blogspot.com/2007/06/gossip-is-good.html
at http://www.notthatidontlovemykids.blogspot.com
I totally agree. I have to admit that I initially got a chuckle out of her getting sentenced to actual jail time but I actually kind of felt for her when I saw the picture of her crying in the police car headed back to jail. She’s a person too. I’m sure she’s scared. And she’s very young and it’s become a circus. I feel sad for her. Not sad enough to think she should get out of jail early. But really, let’s not laugh and enjoy someone’s misery. It’s not like she’s a rapist or a murderer. Having said that, I think it’s worth mentioning that at least a bit of the applause for her getting sent back to jail is appreciation for the fact that this time fame and money didn’t get someone off the hook.
A-freakin’ men. It was on the cover of OUR newspaper yesterday, way up here in the arctic. Appalling.
Amen!
Okay. I’m going to be somewhat of a dissenter, but somewhat of an agreer. Can I do both?
I am constantly disgusted by celebrity coverage. I could care less about 99.9% of the celebrity “news” that’s out there. Why should someone care that X or Y happened? Because she was on Baywatch or a movie?
Please.
But someone like Paris Hilton, who has made a career out of being a media whore, who is personally responsible for the world seeing Britney Spears’ cooch? A girl who repeatedly ignored the law, saying “I don’t know?”
Yet another person who is completely loaded and has yet to use her money or place in life to become a respectable member of society?
I’ll cheer. Because, whether or not I care about celebrities, our society has made it impossible to ignore. So yes, I do have an opinion.
I just would prefer that we could keep the Paris Hilton news contained to People Magazine.
This is seriously solid stuff.
Triple “S”
Wow. Well written . . .
I don’t wish any harm to come to Paris, nor am I happy to see that she continually makes mistakes or bad decisions.
What really gets me is that she thinks she is above the law. She believes that she can do no wrong and if by chance she does, it’s not her fault and she doesn’t have to face the consequences.
This young girl has been in the spotlight a lot and for years.
We could use the excuse that she wasn’t taught to avoid media frenzies or she doesn’t know how to act in public or she never learned how to drink responsibly. We could blame her parents, too.
But there comes a time when she has to stand up and pay the piper. There is no excuse for her behavior and America can’t be blamed because they want to see her held accountable for her actions.
If I drove drunk or violated probation, I’d be arrested and I would have to serve my sentence; there is no question about that.
Why should she be treated differently because she’s the victim of fame and fortune?
Paris Hilton strikes me as a human incarnation of the word “vapid”. For me, thought of other one (Hilton or vapidity) automatically triggers associated thought of the other, these days.
OTOH, I’m sure that, as a young child, she had the same potential that everyone else has to be far more than that. But that that potential was utterly wasted and atrophied into nothing by lax parenting and a strict diet of extreme media hype, resulting in the sad waste of bio-mass that she has become. To be fair, following an upbringing like that, how many kids would know and be able to build anything of real value out of themselves?
My only real reactions to her arrest and the re-affirmation of her jail time is (1) good: another drunk driver answering for it *regardless* of social/financial/political status; and (2) the hope that *maybe* she’ll make *something* about out of this highly-belated lesson in causality.