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Pity Poor Paris

Jill

When I wrote this, my point was that the dialogue surrounding the Paris-Hilton-goes-to-jail affair has been sexist and slut-shaming, that our criminal justice system is broken, and that the Hilton case is no more a victory for justice than any other case is in a fundamentally flawed system.

My point was not that Paris is an innocent victim and that we should all feel sorry for her. But that, apparently, is what Christopher Hitchens thinks.

At some point toward the middle of last Friday, it seemed to me, one was being made a spectator to a small but important injustice. 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?

So the new scale of “injustice” is whether or not the pretty blond white girl cries?

So now, a young woman knows that, everywhere she goes, this is what people are visualizing, and giggling about [her sex tape]. She hasn’t a rag of privacy to her name. But this turns out to be only a prelude. Purportedly unaware that her license was still suspended, a result of being found with a whiff of alcohol on her breath, she also discovers that the majesty of the law will not give her a break.

Appropriate that Christopher Hitchens would lament the “whiff of alcohol on her breath” that “the majesty of the law” should have excused. Forget that Paris was driving drunk, probably not for the first time, and didn’t deign to find out what her actual punishment was, let alone abide by it. Forget that she went to jail not just for driving without a license, but because she showed up to court late with a mother who yelled at the judge, and (surprise, surprise) exhibited no respect for the judge or for the legal system that Hitchens believes is so majestic.

Not content with seeing her undressed and variously penetrated, it seems to be assumed that we need to watch her being punished and humiliated as well. The supposedly “broad-minded” culture turns out to be as prurient and salacious as the elders in The Scarlet Letter. Hilton is legally an adult but the treatment she is receiving stinks—indeed it reeks—of whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse.

Poor Paris, always the victim — almost like a child who is abused or put in pornography.

There seems to be a serious disconnect here. Hitchens pities Paris because we all watched her be “variously penetrated,” which is a horrible humiliation that the poor dear didn’t deserve. Of course, Hitchens watched it too, but how could he have avoided it? (Now, I somehow managed to avoid watching the Paris sex tape, but I must have some super magical media filtering power or something). Gloating at Paris going to jail after watching Paris on film is like raping a child on camera.

It’s truly a fascinating comparison, and demonstrates the length to which Hitchens will apparently go to defend those who are like him, and who fit into his own narrative — Paris Hilton, who notoriously drinks heavily, uses illegal drugs and makes decisions that put the lives and well-being of others in jeopardy — decisions like getting behind the wheel drunk — is but an innocent victim. It’s like The Scarlet Letter — just us judging her for doing nothing wrong, nothing unnatural.

I agree that the conversations around Paris are misogynist and slut-shaming. I think the “she’s a whore who finally got hers” mentality is awful; I think the “Let’s hope she gets raped in prison” comments are unbelievable. But I don’t think she’s an innocent victim being sacrified before the public.

Stuck in my own trap of writing about a nonsubject, I think I can defend my own self-respect, and also the integrity of a lost girl, by saying two things. First, the trivial doings of Paris Hilton are of no importance to me, or anyone else, and I should not be forced to contemplate them. Second, she should be left alone to lead such a life as has been left to her. If this seems paradoxical, then very well.

I imagine she’ll be left alone once she stops trying to be famous.

Paris shouldn’t be attacked because of her sex life. It’s abhorrent that so many people are titillated by the idea that a slut will finally be punished, and by the law no less. But positioning her as a “girl” who was somehow innocently caught up in a lynch mob is ridiculous.

57 thoughts on Pity Poor Paris

  2. 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?

    Dude, Paris is *twenty-six years old*. She’s not a child, even if she spends most of her time behaving like an over-entitled brat.

    As fundamentally unproud of this as I am, I have seen part of one of Paris’s sex tapes. And it’s creepy, not because of the content, but because it’s shot with night vision goggles. She looks like a bored raccoon caught on film. It’s not the sort of thing you watch for titillation.

  3. Oh, good lord. She’s 26 years old! At what point, if ever, does Christopher Hitchens think a female person stops being a child? And if Paris Hilton is a child, then what are the 18-year-olds whom he supported sending off to be blown up and shot in Iraq?

    Drunk driving is a weird crime for middle-class people, I think. On the one hand, it’s one of the few crimes that “nice” people can imagine themselves committing. But I also think we’re more likely to have lost people to drunk driving than to other kinds of violence. It hits close to home in complicated ways.

  4. What IS IT with people wanting to call grown, responsible-for-their-own-reckless-behavior people children? I’m agree that this isn’t a victory of justice, and I’m not all that happy with the media for shoving pictures of her clearly in distress down our throats….especially when there’s real news out there that we need not be distracted from. However Paris is an ADULT. Stop with this “tearful child” bullshit. That same tearful child likes using the word “nigger” and flaunting her privledge every chance she gets.

  5. Ah, Christopher Hitchens, ye who used to call yourself a leftist, ye who used to write for The Nation, how you have fallen. First it was justifying a blatantly unjust and imperialist war. Now you’re defending a scion of the ruling class who has never shown anything but contempt for those of us who don’t have millions of dollars from having to actually, for once in her life, take responsibility for her actions and the way they endanger others. Thank goodness Mr. Hitchens is here to show us what real injustice looks like. No doubt he is equally saddened by the thought of French peasants removing Marie-Antoinette from her palace.

    Well, I’m sure the drink-sodden poppinjay will have no problem finding other appropriate objects for sympathy. Perhaps Donald Trump.

  6. I don’t disdain Paris because of her sex life or her sex tape, which I also have managed to avoid seeing. I have nothing but contempt for her because she is racist, classist, and shown to be, despite her privilege and opportunities , pretty much useless.

    She is a 26 year old WOMAN, not child, and has done nothing with her advantaged position other than chase fame, when in fact she has no real talent. I think that judge should be commended for his actions—putting her right back where she belongs. She broke the law more than once, and did not take the previous directives of the court seriously.That she cried and was obviously afraid when they hauled her ass back to the clink was likely a very humbling experience for her, and I can’t help but think perhaps a worthwhile one. This young woman has been grossly overindulged her whole life, and a dose of reality might just be the wake-up call she needs. The fact that so many people cannot stand her should have been enough for her to re-examine her whole self and way of being in the world—maybe sitting in her jail cell will afford the opportunity to finally do just that.

    And hopefully her idiot parents will take a good long look at themselves as well—they are the ones who created this monster in the first place. The fools were apparently planning some big soiree for her release after 3 days—what sort of message does that send? Rewarding her for not even serving her full sentence—way to really make the lesson sink in, mom and dad!

  7. “You’re a rich girl, and you’ve gone too far ’cause you know it don’t matter anyway…”

    Sorry. That song’s been in my head for days. And I do admit to liking it.

    Seriously, while I don’t consider Paris Hilton a victim (to the extent that I think about her at all), I can’t get into the Schadenfreude that some people are. I’m not pointing any fingers, and I’m not telling people what they should or should not feel. I just don’t feel it, that’s all.

  9. To avoid piling on Paris, I must admit that I think Christopher Hitchens is not the person to lecture the world about drunk driving and whether or not it should be an offense under the law. Neither should he be someone who places value on chasing fame.

    As for, ” she should be left alone to lead such a life as has been left to her”, the woman is stinking rich, 26 and, I’m told, moderately good looking, I think she will do fine once she is released.

  10. 1. I know two people whose children were killed by drunk drivers. One of those people was pulled from the wreck safely only to watch her husband and three kids, ages 1, 3, and 5, burned to death. In Texas, what she did would get her 18 months in state jail, which is still probably too light, especially given her “drunk driving? meh.” attitude.

    2. I completely agree with you that insulting her for being sexual is inappropriate. She isn’t a problem because she’s promiscous, it’s that she contributes not one other remotely useful thing to human existence. The food, water, and oxygen necessary to keep her alive would be better used for rats, roaches, and fire ants. (Now, isn’t what I just wrote hugely more insulting, as well as accurate, that simply calling her a “skank?” Use some creativity people.)

    3. I’m not offended by the existence of rich people, provided they use their extraordinary advantages to some extraordinary purpose. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is an Exxon heiress, vastly richer than the Hilton thing, who used her money to become an expert primatologist and one of the first to study motherhood patterns across cultures. Heck, Bill Gates came from a rich family, and while one can argue about Microsoft’s business practices, he still created a company that provides uniquely useful products. (I’m using one right now.) The problem with the Hilton thing is that she uses her money for absolutly nothing. No education, no charity work that doesn’t involve People Magazine, nothing.

  11. Not to swim too much against the stream, but reading this piece I didn’t get the impression that Hitchens was defending Hilton so much as sneering at the people who seem to have taken such glee in her conviction and imprisonment. Its the slut-shaming, the schadenfreude, the creepy classist circle jerk around this woman finally “getting hers.” Hitchens is recoiling not from the fact that she went to jail, but from the response so many people have had, especially when she was sent back. From the joy, from the circus, from all the ugly (and often sexualized) undercurrent that went with so many people’s reactions.

    Yes, Paris is flaunts her privilege. Yes, shes a racist, classist, obnoxious symbol of all that is wrong with American society. But that doesn’t make her fair game, that doesn’t make it ok to do to her things we wouldn’t tollerate being done to someone else. Just because we find her personally repellent doesn’t mean that we should turn a blind eye when suddenly shes on the receiving end of the kind of social ugliness most of us would rally against.

    I’m just sayin’…

  12. Thanks for writing this, Jill. I was also appalled at Hitchens’ column; I am similiarly appalled (but, sadly, unsurprised) at the video on CNN.com (sorry, don’t think I can link to it as it’s a pop-up) entitled “Lessons for bad girls” that strictly separates the women of Hollywood/the media into “good girls” and “bad girls.” It features a middle-aged man apparently enthralled at the idea that he alone knows the difference between a “good girl” and a “bad girl” and gives advice to the latter on how they can be more like their wholesome counterparts. Sick.

  13. I have to admit I felt sorry for her when I saw that picture (to be clear, the picture of her crying as they sent her back to jail, not any sex-related picture). I’m sure she’s scared, though in reality I think she’ll be kept safer in jail than the average young man or woman sent there. But treating her as a special child who needs to be protected from the consequences of her own actions at the age of 26 isn’t helping her, and would in fact be injust–especially in light of what we often do to *actual* children who commit crimes.

  14. I don’t give a toss if Paris Hilton has more money than I, better medical care, better going-out shoes. I still pity her immensely. She seems fundamentally unhappy, sick, and deluded. And she is encouraged in her behaviour by her own flesh and blood. Hitchie is right to call her a child – people like that rarely do grow up.

    Having said that, I’m not at all disturbed by the fact that she is in jail. She put people’s lives at risk by driving drunk (I should know, a relative of mine was killed this way). If she had avoided this, there would have been no need to suspend her license in the first place. Furthermore, she really does need time off – and not on an exotic beach either. So no pity from me on that count.

    Oh yeah, and the sex tape? Super boring. The fact that this sort of thing actually causes a fuss in society is pretty hilarious (and sad) in itself. And the fact that she continues to be defined by this sex tape is just ridiculous. We’re way too hung up on sex – in a bad way.

  15. Just because we find her personally repellent doesn’t mean that we should turn a blind eye when suddenly shes on the receiving end of the kind of social ugliness most of us would rally against.

    Right, and that’s what Jill’s original post on this topic was about. There is no call whatsoever for people to start mentally casting Paris in violent rape porn.

    The problem I have with Hitchens’s column is that he seems to be saying her conduct deserves no condemnation whatsoever.

  16. The drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay takes up for someone who is best known for courting negative attention and acting infantile and entitled; someone whose substance abuse has caused problems and does not want to face the consequences? Gee, I wonder how he came to that conclusion.

  17. Natalia pretty much said what I was going to say, but since I seem to be the only heterosexual man in America who has NOT seen the Paris sex tape (and has no interest in doing so), I’ll put in my two cents’ worth anyway. Briefly, (1) I do not feel sorry for Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, or anyone else who habitually drives drunk, except insofar as many of them would probably like to grow up but just don’t know how; (2) I think amount of attention the media devote to her situation is inexcusable, obscene, and vile, but let’s face it, media decision-makers probably publish this stuff because people buy it, not because they are inherently depraved. So, whose fault is that? Excellent point, Natalia, that we are way too hung up on sex — in a bad way.

  18. Its the slut-shaming, the schadenfreude, the creepy classist circle jerk around this woman finally “getting hers.” Hitchens is recoiling not from the fact that she went to jail, but from the response so many people have had, especially when she was sent back.

    First of all, I think he pretty clearly is recoiling from the fact that she went to jail. He doesn’t think she did anything wrong, and he thinks drunk driving laws are “arbitrary” and “trivial”. You could definitely make a comment about Hitchens’s own drinking habits, but I’m not sure that’s even the point. There are laws about driving drunk. They’re not arbitrary. Hitchens doesn’t get to legislate for the state of California, and nobody should be exempt from following reasonable laws.

    Secondly, he doesn’t like the slut-shaming, but I think what he does in that article is kind of the flipside of it. To him, Hilton is completely defined by her sex tape. It’s such a terrible, humiliating violation that she can only be treated as a fragile, broken child from here on out. She’s been defiled, and she needs protection. I think there are some pretty sketch-tastic attitudes about female sexuality going on there.

  19. Sorry. I put trivial in quotes, and he didn’t actually say that. What he did say was that she committed a “tiny offense.”

  20. Paris Hilton is darn near the closest thing we have in this day that compares with Marie Antoinette. I’m supposed to feel sorry for her in some way? Why exactly? Hitchens doesn’t make a case for that. If indeed he’s trying to make a case about the media and public response, then that’s something I suppose I can agree with. But the fact is that I don’t care about the media and public reaction anymore than I care about Hilton herself. As a pop cultural icon she’s as vapid as a Springer show and about as base.

    Given that, however, I do appreciate Jill’s commentary on the sexist rhetoric thrown at the Hilton.

  21. Yep Sally – seems like acceptable attitudes towards Paris are either slut-shaming or paternalism, take your pick.

    (I’ll have neither, thanks!)

  22. Not to swim too much against the stream, but reading this piece I didn’t get the impression that Hitchens was defending Hilton so much as sneering at the people who seem to have taken such glee in her conviction and imprisonment.

    If Hitchens were the captain of a ship that was headed straight for a coral reef, he’d spend his last seconds on earth sneering at the mapmakers who noted the reef’s presence, as if they were responsible for putting it there, rather than steering the ship away from it.

    It really is awesome to watch him try to warp reality to suit his delusion of the moment by the sheer power of his eloquence, which is increasingly shopworn but yet retains some force. I think that he thinks that he really can shame Hilton’s detractors by suggesting that the infamous night vision video is somehow child pornography. The idea that he, a former iconoclast of note, is going to bat for a spoiled heiress seems to utterly escape him.

  23. I think there are some pretty sketch-tastic attitudes about female sexuality going on there.

    Word. Hitchens is like George Will’s drunken, black-sheep-of-the-family cousin.

  24. To him, Hilton is completely defined by her sex tape. It’s such a terrible, humiliating violation that she can only be treated as a fragile, broken child from here on out. She’s been defiled, and she needs protection. I think there are some pretty sketch-tastic attitudes about female sexuality going on there.

    Sally for the win.

  25. Hey!

    Marie Antoinette was married at 14. 14!
    So I’ve got more sympathy for that.

    You break the law, *repeatedly* and you go to jail. I don’t take pleasure in her crying, but I really wish it wasn’t front page news.

  26. I don’t know, I actually somewhat agreed with Hitchens for once. I didn’t really think he was saying that Paris should be pitied, more that it’s kinda sick everyone’s apparent satisfaction at seeing pictures of her crying plastered everywhere … and I thought the focus on her face while the audience was cheering for her going to jail at the MTV movie awards was just uncalled for … she may be a horribly flawed person, but she’s still a person, and just because she’s famous/entitled/whatever people should do/say things directly to her that they would never dare do/say to somebody else …

    And as for the Scarlet letter thing, I think he was kind of making a point very similar to the one Jill made here the other day, about everyone’s delight at watching a “slut” get punished … it didn’t really seem Hitchens was excusing Hilton at all, but more condemning the schadenfreude ..

  28. I found it particularly bizarre that Hitchens says that her “trivial doings. . . are of no importance to me,. . . and I should not be forced to contemplate them.” But he not only says that he has watched her sex tape, but then for some reason goes into a paragraph-long review of it. Oh no! Not only was I forced to watch her sex tape, but it wasn’t even that good!

    Incidentally, when Hitchens says that “everywhere she goes, [the sex tape] is what people are visualizing, and giggling about,” is that really true, or is he projecting? I recall the sex tape as the thing that made her famous, but that was several years ago, and it’s certainly not the first thing that I think of when I hear her name now. But I’m also not familiar with the yahoos or media outlets that Jill referred to, that apparently take glee in “slut-shaming” Paris Hilton. (I’m not saying that they don’t exist; just that I’ve had pretty limited exposure to the Paris Hilton coverage.)

  29. Well, if it makes Hitchens feel any better, my hatred for Hilton is purely class- and stupidity-based. Any time a rich stupid person goes to jail, I feel pleased.

  30. Yes, the fascination with Paris Hilton’s latest doings highlights so much that’s wrong with our culture’s celebrity-worship.
    Yes, Hitchens is a sodden, lascivious old putz.
    Can’t we ever focus for more than five second blurbs on actual news, like what’s going on in Iraq or Afghanistan, or are the weather patterns altering as a result of global warming, or what’s really going to happen with “immigration reform,” or has the U.S. military really been dumping radioactive waste or excess chemical weapons into the ocean, etc.?
    Nah, it’s much more interesting to wonder whether some Albanian stole Bush.’s watch.

  31. I’ll admit that I did feel sorry for Paris as she was literally dragged out of court crying and screaming for her mother. This has to be the first time in her entire quarter-of-a-century life that she’s actually being held accountable for her actions, and that has to be a real shock. I’m sure she really doesn’t understand what’s going on right now and is sincerely wondering why she’s being punished for something that she and her friends have probably done dozens of times without the slightest bit of trouble.

    It is kind of infantalizing to characterize Paris as an innocent little girl, and she certainly needs to be punished for her crime as an adult, but to some extent, she’s never been anything but a little kid. She’s never gotten the training that most of us got to raise us from childhood to adulthood. I’d love to see Paris Hilton go back to her parents and say, “Mom, Dad, how have I gone twenty-six years without ever learning how to act like a human being? Why am I only learning this now, as an adult? Who was supposed to teach me these things back when I was a little kid?”

    And what Mr. Hitchens ignores is that she initially got pulled over for driving drunk, that when she got pulled over the second time she had a signed document in her glove compartment acknoweldging that her license had been suspended and she shouldn’t be driving, that it was only when she got pulled over a second time for driving without a license (or headlights) that she actually got arrested, that she showed up for court late, that her mother yelled at the judge and the prosecutor, and that her entire family showed nothing but contempt for the authority of the court. It’s not like she’s an innocent little girl who’s being unfairly picked on.

  32. I recall the sex tape as the thing that made her famous, but that was several years ago, and it’s certainly not the first thing that I think of when I hear her name now.

    Yeah, me too. In Hitchens’s sort-of defense, I suspect that’s because he’s pretty insulated from pop culture. If you ever read In Touch or watch Extra or have seen The Simple Life, then the sex tape isn’t a defining part of the Paris mystique. But probably he doesn’t really follow the really low end of pop culture, and someone sent him the sex tape because it was titillating. So as far as he’s concerned, Paris is famous for the sex tape and then for this.

  33. Yeah, me too. In Hitchens’s sort-of defense, I suspect that’s because he’s pretty insulated from pop culture. If you ever read In Touch or watch Extra or have seen The Simple Life, then the sex tape isn’t a defining part of the Paris mystique. But probably he doesn’t really follow the really low end of pop culture, and someone sent him the sex tape because it was titillating. So as far as he’s concerned, Paris is famous for the sex tape and then for this.

    I’m not sure it’s possible to be _that_ insulated from pop culture. I don’t have a T.V., don’t read any popular magazinees, and only listen to NPR on the radio (which has not shown much interest in Paris Hilton). But every so often I catch snippets of network news at the gym, or headlines of tabloids at the supermarket, and that’s enough to let me know that Paris Hilton sometimes doesn’t wear panties, has shouted racial epithets, has fallen out with Linday Lohan, etc. . .

  34. I’ve read Antonia Fraser’s biography of Marie Antoinette, and she’s actually pretty sympathetic. She started out as being shallow and flighty, but she was married at fourteen and immediately put under incredible pressure to bear a son and eventually get Louis to do things in Austria’s best interests. (Her brother sent her a letter telling her that she was getting old and if she didn’t produce an heir, she’d only ever be an unhappy princess and unhappier queen. She was twenty-one.) But she didn’t whine, and she didn’t complain: she bore four children for the throne of France and did her best to undertake promoting the interests of Austria in her husband’s court, even though she had almost no idea how to go about this. By the time she went to the guillotine, she’d lost her husband, seen her best friend’s head waved around on a pike outside her cell, and been accused of molesting her son.

    Paris Hilton, on the other hand, has done nothing in her life to demonstrate that she has any concept of responsibility whatsoever. She’s rich and famous for it, but has she done one damn thing with that to indicate she understands how incredibly privileged she is? As Cleolinda said on her livejournal:

    Here’s the thing about these three issues: it’s not any one thing. I can deal with you being useless. Ubiquitously untalented, even. I can deal with you being a spoiled, spineless dink. I can even deal with you being a danger to society. I cannot deal with you being all three at the same time.

    The slut-shaming is bad, I agree. So she’s indiscriminate sexually; I don’t care. My problem with her is that she’s callow and thoughtless, and apparently cannot grasp that driving under the influence endangers others as well as her pretty little over-promoted head. That’s where my satisfaction in this comes from.

  35. Sign me up with those who feel sorry for Paris more than they disdain her. If that’s “paternalism,” then call me Daddy.

    I kind of agreed with Hitchens’s piece, but what annoyed me was his attempt to link Hilton’s case with Scooter Libby’s. I don’t see how anyone but the most strident political partisan could feel much sympathy for Libby.

  37. Heh. I hadn’t seen the other posts! Honest!

    (But it would be pretty funny if she were lying about her age and was really 32. I don’t think so, though. Her entire life has been documented by the media since before she was born.)

  39. It shouldn’t be hard to avoid the sex tape.

    I’ll admit to having cackled at seeing that she was being sent back to jail, but my reason for this is that the New York Times website is my homepage, and for a week the headlines were often cluttered with updates on Paris Hilton’s little adventure between home and jail. I cackled because I was sick of the coverage of a non story. Whatever she did and whatever punishment she received are hers and deserving of no more attention than that given in tabloids. Her case is not symbolic, and it’s none of our damn business. I didn’t laugh at her expense, but because I didn’t want to hear another word about it.

    In the same way that I don’t look at car wrecks or emergency vehicles with flashing lights, I assiduously avoid news about the quotidian aspects of celebrity life.

    My reaction to a large, very obscured photo of Paris’ face contorted in response to, at the very least, an understandably stressful ordeal, was one of relief.

  40. I’ll admit that I did feel sorry for Paris as she was literally dragged out of court crying and screaming for her mother.

    Yeah, me too, but I’m a sucker that way. I feel bad for pretty much anyone who is crying, criminal or not. Still, Jesus Christ, she broke the law casually and repeatedly. I’m glad she’s in jail because the odds of her running someone over are considerably less in there. I think she should be banned from driving for several years to come – it’s not like she can’t afford a driver.

  41. Hmmm…

    Okay,

    Paris Hilton is a 26 year old adult. She should have learned to be responsible for her actions a long time ago and now is not the time to mollycoddle her.

    Regardless of the standard sentence for drunk driving, her sentence seems short. Drunk driving is the equivalent of running around, out of control with a huge lump of fast, grinding, death. You put others lives at risk.

    I hate our culture which noses in on the private lives of anyone remotely famous and refuses their right to take a crap without it being in a paper. However. Anyone who is happy to tell the general public intimate personal details on a weekly basis in order to maintain a semblance of fame has voluntarily sacrificed their right to such privacy. Another aspect of taking responsibility for yourself.

  42. The fact that this is even considered news bothers me. I mean, it might be worthy of a 90second talk up on Entertainment Tonight but certainly not hours and hours of coverage on legitimate news channels.

  43. Yeah, me too, but I’m a sucker that way. I feel bad for pretty much anyone who is crying, criminal or not.

    Me, too. In fact, I feel bad for Scooter Libby, too. And for most people whose lives are sucking, even when it’s their own damn fault and they should be sent to jail.

  44. It’s abhorrent that so many people are titillated by the idea that a slut will finally be punished,

    Odd, I thought what people were enjoying was the spectacle of a spoiled rich self-indulgent brat realizing she’s not exempt from the law.

  45. To him, Hilton is completely defined by her sex tape. It’s such a terrible, humiliating violation that she can only be treated as a fragile, broken child from here on out. She’s been defiled, and she needs protection. I think there are some pretty sketch-tastic attitudes about female sexuality going on there.

    You know, Sally, that isn’t how I read the piece, but now that you’ve pointed it out I can see your point. When I read it I felt that Hitchens was speaking more to the scrutiny and the total lack of privacy that the tape represents, that it took away any shred of something that could be called “personal” from this woman. It isn’t so much that Paris has been defiled but that she no longer has control over how she presents herself because the first thing that comes to someone’s mind when they see her is a grainy green image of her having awkward sex.

    Reading it again I see where you’re getting the paternalistic vibe, especially in his tone, though I can’t quite put my finger on exactly where. The more I think about it the stronger it gets.

    Thanks for the response.

  46. I actually do think there is a bit of injustice in the treatment of Paris Hilton. I don’t actually believe she’d have gotten the treatment she has if the judge wasn’t aware that people would be watching and expecting something. I don’t feel she should catch any breaks due to her fame, but I don’t think she should be penalized for it, either. The reality, though, is that drunk driving generally isn’t treated seriously and violating probation for drunk driving is generally treated even less seriously. Had she not been Paris Hilton, I think she’d probably have been released from jail pretty quickly so I am grudgingly troubled by her treatment.

    Note that NONE of that has to do with treating a 26-year old woman like a fragile little child who ought to be exempt from mature responsibilities. Her breakdown was sad, yes. But it doesn’t add up to an injustice. It means she had a really awful upbringing that has left her unable to cope with relatively minor obstacles in her life. There are a lot of people in prison right now who had shitty childhoods far worse than Hilton’s. I feel bad for them, too. But that doesn’t make it unjust. It certainly doesn’t make it unjust when the person suffering comes in sexy package. Call me when Hitchens is complaining about the injustice of all of the other prisoners who’s poor upbringing put them in the situation they are in. Because that’s what we’re talking about with Paris Hilton, and she deserves no more sympathy on that count that a whole lot of other people.

  47. I was going back and forth on this, because I think that Paris Hilton is the personification of the materialism and obsession with consumerism in our culture. She’s famous BECAUSE we’re so materialistic and shallow. But at the same time, I was sickened by the media frenzy over her going to jail.

    I think I’ve figured it out, though. I don’t feel sorry for Paris Hilton. She committed a crime. But I’m DISGUSTED that I live in a society that would react with such utter glee and slut-shaming joy over the fall of a celebrity that WE CREATED, and such incredible apathy about the rest of the very, very real problems in the world.

    What does it say about the world we live in that people would rather gloat that a rich, blonde 26-year-old could get raped in prison than react with outrage when an Iraqi 14-year-old was raped and killed by American soldiers after witnessing the murders of her entire family?

    Paris just chases fame. If we, as a society, valued contributions to humanity over vapid consumerism, Paris would be (or at least seem like) a better person, and we would all live in a better world. And yes, I’m taking the blame for my own part in this culture. We’ve turned escapism into an art form.

  48. Paris Hilton is a 26 year old adult. She should have learned to be responsible for her actions a long time ago and now is not the time to mollycoddle her.

    I need to incorporate the word “mollycoddle” into my daily vernacular.

    Paris broke the law. She should face her punishment. End of story. I’m just glad her money didn’t get her out of it.

  49. I’d like to add that the last time I saw this kind of glee about a celebrity going to prison was after Martha Stewart’s trial, but everything was about how she was bitch instead of how she was a slut. Now, I firmly believe that Martha was scapegoated, but that’s not the case with Paris.

    It’s just interesting how the masses have the same reaction to two women who were occupying public space in manners deemed traditionally inappropriate for women; Martha Stewart, for being too powerful and not nice enough, and Paris Hilton, for not being a timid, demure virgin who dresses modestly.

  50. Apropos of nothing, during a recent visit to my parents, we ended up watching a Hallmark Swiss Family Robinson rip-off called “Stranded” that included a swaggering drunk pirate who was the spitting image of Christopher Hitchens.

    My view of this is that Hilton is part of the current Bimbo/Bunny narrative du jour. The first act of the Bimbo/Bunny narrative involves an apparently naive and attractive young woman who rises to fame on the basis of her sex appeal combined with a naive “who me?” approach to scandal. We are currently in act two where the world implodes around her. Act three is either “untimely death and critical praise” ala Monroe, “redemption and restoration,” or “pathetic has-been seeking publicity” ala the current treatment of Courtney Love.

  53. FWIW, the commenter using “Thomas” from Badassbard is not to be confused with everyone’s favorite Totally Serious Insufferable Douche.

  54. Indeed I should not be.

    I would use a different moniker but, well, it’s my name. It’s apparently your name also. Some people will just have to be confused.

  55. I’d like to add that the last time I saw this kind of glee about a celebrity going to prison was after Martha Stewart’s trial, but everything was about how she was bitch instead of how she was a slut. Now, I firmly believe that Martha was scapegoated, but that’s not the case with Paris…

    (To quote a scrap of a reggae lyric) “Yo Martha Stewart/ got a lot o’ gall/ but that ain’t gonna help her/ out at all/ cos everybody knows/ that the high finance/ run by the hymie-town whities/ in the silk suit pants..” (a song that predicted that Ken Lay would never go to prison). Yep…
    Does anybody else have an issue with Hitch beating the dead horse that he rode in on? If he’s so affronted by all this coverage, why does he continue coverage? I’m surprised he didn’t post a URL to the dread sex tapes, so that we could truly grasp the Depth of his point… ^..^

  56. If Paris Hilton had been Paris Nobody then she would have never been returned to jail.

    – mostly because she wouldn’t have been released , early, from jail in the first place

    – mostly because if she had been Paris nobody then the same court as took her licence would have also ordered her into some sort of de tox and counselling program.

    Have a rreally good look. How many commonplace offendors are EVER jailed for driving without a licence whithout at least one warning first?

    The whole jail thing is a cheap political stunt on the part of the courts.

  57. i think its going a little too far since she is getting punished more harshly than 80% of people with similar offences… but i have to say that i dont have sympathy at all for anyone who drink drives. whether you kill somebody or not i feel that all drunk drivers are responsible for the related deaths on the roads… im sure it will be hard for her but at least it will teach her to stop being so naive (and read her mail!) and she is fortunate that she still will have a wonderful life on the other side of her sentence- unlike many people who end up in gaol.

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