Saturday, June 09, 2007
Persecuting Paris
Fox news anchor Gretchen Carlson had to move away from the desk and cover her ears - see weirdly entertaining vid - when a story about a man amputating his own leg came up. She feared she might pass out. Is this woman really in the right job? But, in fact, I find myself in sympathy with Gretchen - this is exactly what I want to do when confronted with the latest bizarre twists in the Paris Hilton story. The American legal system - the most regrettable and least English aspect of that country - is now persecuting her beyond endurance. I cover my ears because I feel guilt. I have long campaigned for the ritual persecution of celebrities, perhaps on special public holidays. But bouncing the poor girl in and out of prison as if she were a Monopoly piece is too much even for me to stomach. I say: free this blameless French hotel at once.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
When in America, I always fear lawyers will find a way of putting me in a cell filled with cats.
ReplyDeleteThe Paris (is that Texas or France?) Hilton story is second item on BBC News 24 this morning. Beyond bizarre!
ReplyDeleteThe most annoying thing about celebrities is that one can sense the dishonesty in everything they do. Beneath the shiny, welcoming exterior is a cold, calculating, ruthless cynic with a single-minded intention of career advancement. It's our sense of that that makes us particularly enjoy their downfalls. In the case of Paris, however, after seeing her distress yesterday, I think it's clear that she actually IS as vapid, stupid and childish as she appears. She clearly has no capacity of imagination to prepare herself for this, relatively trivial, prison ordeal and this is why your attitude towards her has softened: she doesn't fit your celebrity template any more. For me, I still think it's really funnny. Her behaviour reminds me of a 5 year-old when you take away her favourite toy because she has to go to bed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ade completely and am taking great consequent satisfaction in her return to jail. What this world needs is more hanging judges. But bizarrely, She Who Is Perfect, who has heretofore been dependably contemptuous of the doxie, has suddenly gone all achy emotionally and is using these very same arguments to paint this as the greatest cruelty since the princes were locked in the Tower. And she won't take my air-tight reasoning for the final word. I'm being followed around the house, not by argument, but by that kind of puppy-dog hurt that makes me want to flee to my dentist for a respite. I'm in constant tear-alert mode and "Free Paris" signs are starting to appear on the drinks table. Last night, the bedroom door was mysteriously locked.
ReplyDeleteTwenty-three days is longer than it sounds.
The poet E. Ethelbert Miller (who will take your IBPC bench for October, November & December this year, following Maurya Simon), made an interesting post on his blog E-Notes when Paris Hilton was first freed. The second line of his four line comment is "Why do the poor still remain behind bars?" That comment has stuck with me throughout the news, and drawn me to the news of her being brought back in and re-sentenced to prison, but also as she has cried and yelled out. In a curious turn of events, she seems to have gone from the rich girl who can get herself out of prison while poor prisoners cannot, to sincerely and dramatically representing the ordeal of a prison sentence.
ReplyDeleteSupporter of Paris Hilton here. She makes the world a much jollier place and has the class to make our home-grown celebs look like the dross they are. Every time I see Paris Hilton I imagine houses on fire in Tunbridge Wells. Pure rage has turned their true-blue-and-disgusted owners into human incendiary bombs and the rest is, well, a column of smoke in the sky. And, as rus bowden points out, the latest twist brings some universal appeal to the story Go Paris.
ReplyDeleteIt's not bizarre at all, Richard. The human population is being dumbed down. Is this accidental- merely for the benefit of cheap tv or are there other reasons? "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think" -- Adolf Hitler.
ReplyDelete"The non-stop distraction of the various forms of media deliberately used to prevent people from paying too much attention to the reality of the social and political situation"--Aldous Huxley.
This strikes me as vindictive, a bit like offering a lolly to a child and then bowling the thing into the trees.
ReplyDeleteIf the first was not a political sentence, this shouts election.
can't she just be stripped naked, bent over and birched, like in a Victorian novel? That's how it ends in 'Bleak House' and 'Jane Eyre', and no has any complaints.
ReplyDeleteWhat elberry, beat the naked catholic chick. Any chance you would like to watch.
ReplyDeleteNext you'll have real shooting in cathedrals.
Andrew, I sometimes think that is what's happening but then reject it as a conspiracy too far. I'm in that phase at the moment, but find myself drifting back to your side of the argument with great rapidity.
ReplyDeletewww.ddondees.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteTry and Win... Where is the picture form? Add points to your ranking!
yes, i'd be happy to watch Paris Hilton be birched, but more out of sadistic relish than lust. i'll go for educated Milton-reading MILF over brain-dead skank any day. i know where it's at.
ReplyDeleteas for conspiracy theories: Nero fiddles while Rome burns; today we do the equivalent while civil liberties are ripped to shreds (George W Bush on the Constitution: "It's just a damn piece of paper!"). How many genuinely educated people would vote for a chimpanzee for President? Or New Labour?
i often get away with crimes at work because no one can believe i'd do anything so insane & dangerous, so why shouldn't the G adopt the same policy? Call it a conspiracy theory or truth, whichever you like. These people profit by blurring the two together so some of their actual hi-jinks seem weirder than the X-Files.
People refused to accept that the Germans - one of the most educated nations - were systematically conducting genocide; because it seemed too weird for words.
Interesting that the Hilton's ability to create this three ring circus with their money and influence has convinced even an old campaigner such as yourself that the girl should be set free.
ReplyDeleteWere she not a celebrity with powerful parents, she would never have gotten out in the first place. So the Monopoly piece is not a victim of the American legal system - she is a victim of her parents' partially successful attempts to circumvent it.
As for blameless - I'm not so sure that someone caught driving 90MPH at night, with her lights off, in a 35MPH zone, while on probation, after having her license to drive suspended and being warned not once but twice not to drive at all, is "blameless." Dangerous, yes, but blameless? IIRC, at one time, British jurists took such matters very seriously. (Something about a certain # of endorsements and then, that's it - no driving again ever, is how it was described to me.)
Other than her being bounced out and then back in prison. Ms. Hilton is getting the exact treatment that anyone else would have received. The DUI punishment (probation, suspension of her license, and a fine) was what you would expect. The jail time for failing to abide by her original sentence (driving with a suspended license twice) is also what is standard in California. Her treatment since she has been sent to prison is, IMHO, no doubt because of the campaign donation that was received by the sheriff from Ms. Hilton's parents. Today the news is reporting that Ms. Hilton's sister was allowed to cut in front of the 3 hour visitor's waiting line to see her sister. The saga continues. If nothing else, Ms. Hilton is keeping her name in the press and when all you have is your name, this is a good thing.
ReplyDelete