The Reluctant Whore

Look at that. What a surprise to be talking about Paris Hilton after not wanting to. Forever. Yesterday, Paris Hilton was on The View to talk about her unshockingly crap new reality show “My New BFF” (which interestingly enough apparently involves a trip to the Middle East – hope she doesn’t get stoned to death). I was watching my DVRed episode of The View and thought, ok, maybe Joy Behar will hack into her a little – that should be fun except sadly there was literally no chance of that here in the North East of the US. Actually, there was no chance of that anywhere in the US as far as I know because – as had been predicted for at least the last week – General Motors was announcing its bankruptcy Monday morning and the president was scheduled to address the manner in which they were to be bailed out. So, about thirty seconds into the Paris Hilton segment ABC cut to a Special News Report and broadcast president Obama’s live press conference instead.

Look at that Paris – you got upstaged by the NEW zeitgeist. You didn’t think it could last forever, did you?

What struck me about this was that this transference of national attention was as intense to watch as the kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears or the less important figurative passing of the torch from Lauren Conrad to Heidi Montag on The Hills a few weeks ago. It really is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

I haven’t even been watching or reading the news that much for the past week and I still knew this announcement was happening. It’s not like the president just usually just grabs national news airtime at the touch of a button for no apparent reason. We knew this was coming.

Consequently, I think it’s safe to assume that the producers of The View slotted her in there as a guest because they knew the name was cheap and simple enough to get viewers in but ultimately it wasn’t going to cause any kind of conflict as it may have with a guest of any real substance that might have felt jilted afterwards. Paris Hilton, after all, doesn’t feel.

Regardless, it doesn’t seem to matter what Paris Hilton does, she’s still a figure that people love to humiliate whether it be the general public or some television producers. I couldn’t help but watch this cut away from The View and remember the time she had her Sidekick stolen and hacked and was quoted in the press as saying, “I just don’t understand why this kind of thing keeps happening to me.” - or something to that effect.

It happens to you, Paris, because you’re the cultural equivalent to cheap, pornography flavoured, corn syrup choc crème filled snack cakes. Everyone loves you because you’re affordable, consistent and easy but ultimately you induce innumerable cultural diseases. Paris, you eventuate the cultural equivalent of some kind of digestive cancer brought on by too much refined white flour and sugar. People like you until you aren’t doing it for them anymore and then they blame you because you make them feel pain. People lash out. Like phone hackers, TV producers and maybe even the smug new black president.

But wait, let’s be fair. Paris may actually have changed.

For one thing, she’s not exactly everywhere we look right now any more. I mean, that period of time where she was in and out of prison upstaged the resignation of General Peter Pace and the AP, for one, came up with a policy of refusing to report on her because she was everywhere. She was everything and nothing at once. Right now, she’s nowhere near that level of exposure and I think that shows remarkable restraint on her behalf. These days she’s only a lingering rainstorm not another city destroying hurricane.

So, she’s doing the rounds now because has a new impossibly shit reality show about how she wants a new best friend and she’s out doing media to promote it. One thing that’s different about Hilton now is that her voice is a lot lower. The segment that did air on the View involved Joy Behar asking her how she got so thin and she claimed it was because of “pilates” as all good publicist retaining celebrities tend to do and then she went on to talk about the MTV awards and her voice was noticeably lower and calmer than the time she went on Larry King. On The View she seemed less insistent on playing the role of the evil cheerleader who knows how to be polite in front of the parents at the school function. That was probably one of the reasons why there was such a backlash against her after she went on Larry King. Apart from the fact that was speaking at all and revealing that she’s not really some kind of omniscient pop culture god, the high voice made her sound insincere.

My god, this post is still going.

With her new, lower voice she sounds slightly less put-on and in fact when you look at the ads for her new reality show the music is quirky and makes her look like she’s potentially making fun of herself and who knew she had the mental capacity for something as complex as that? Although, just to end this on a disappointing note, when you watch the actual show, it’s fairly standard reality TV fodder with plenty of totally staged scenes and a minor key dancey theme song that invokes the kind of ego indulgence your average mid-western reality TV viewer needs to stay alive and kicking.

So, overall – Paris Hilton’s new show is – surprise surprise – totally innocuous and, as you’d expect, she is still being kicked while she’s down but she’s perhaps figuring out that not everything she does is gold simply because she does it. That’s why she now has a lower voice in interviews. Having that realization can’t be a bad thing when you’re now just a wilting zeitgeist being upstaged by the bankruptcy of a car manufacturer.

Done and done.