The heiress in the headlines, again.

Christopher Hitchens' hesitant foray into the low-brow affair of Paris Hilton's incarceration for parole violation represented something of an excuse for serious-minded individuals to comment upon the latest in tabloid news.

Declaring any sympathies for the "besieged" heiress to be misplaced, Adrasteia highlights Paris' canny and ongoing manipulation of the press (or in Iconoclast's words, her timeless art of self-promotion):

Paris Hilton has made a very good living out of being in the press. When she says she works hard she is not lying. She works constantly to be in media. She comes from a a family of marketers and to say she is some poor little girl who had all her privacy stripped from her is at best naive, at worst stupid. She is a master marketer. And she is not a girl but a woman. No the "majesty" of the law did not give her a break nor would it give me one in the same situation. Perhaps the law is tired of those who feel they are entitled.

In a sarcastically titled Pauvre Paris, Alia also rails against the narrative of victimhood that Hitchens has crafted:

Consequences are often good things. Consider the people - her self included - that might be inadvertently helped by such harsh sentencing. Consider the inherent self-centeredness and carelessness in those who drink & drive, one that is only bound to escalate and generally doesn't stop until it is stopped. If 43 days in jail, rather than a genuine tragedy stops it, maybe we all come out ahead.

You might also consider the social tensions in this country that would only be exasperated had she "gotten-off" (not in the video mind you). Perhaps that played a role in the judge's decision to send her back to jail. It may be wrong, but as Paris proves everyday, life isn't fair.

bsdetector441 reads the recent events as a morality tale of "duly earned punishments for chosen ills, asking "should we not follow her descent into personal responsibility as we have been invited to celebrate her snobbery" particularly after Paris "has rubbed our collective noses in her ascendancy"?

lucabrasi argues for why Paris is consequential. Among the reasons:

1. She is a popular icon of this era, a quick-check means of ascertaining what society is about right now. Soulless, clueless, narcissists? (Oh, not all of us. Just Paris and me.)

2. She has FANS. Young ones, I assume. (This testimonial by a schoolteacher would seem to confirm the assumption.) Persons who are willing to spend their hard-earned money (or their parents') to make Paris richer. Honestly, I don't know what all of her products are, but I assume books, perfume, clothing. She has a TV show, once highly watched. One has to shift the attention from Paris back to the people who love her and spend money on her. Why?

3. With guys, perhaps this is why: She's attractive and knows how to project sex in a burger commercial wearing a swimsuit washing a car. Sex symbols are made, not born. She demonstrably did this right -- though there is something to her face that lacks true beauty.

4. She's just like the moral of "The Sopranos": Life isn't fair. Some people get away with everything. Get used to it (the jail time is a mere blip versus this theme.)

5. She's of an "idle rich community of beautiful people" that have been with us for centuries. Generally, they live apart from us poorer, uglier people, and travel in globe-trotting circles which we could never afford. Paris' parents are a trust-fund hotel heir and his gorgeous airhead wife, who met her husband while a bikini extra on "The Love Boat." To the good, Paris broke free from total rich-kid apathy and actually pursued a public career of sorts. To the bad (for her) Paris stumbled into the "real world" of the LA justice system, and thus left her bubble of careless privilege. Oops.

Whether this column becomes an extension of the media phenomenon surrounding Paris Hilton, as Hitchens might claim, or a mere reflection of it is up for debate in Fighting Words Fray. AC … 3:34pm PDT

Thursday, June 7, 2007