"Yawn...well, we'll always have Paris!" - a commentary by Heather Shannon

Hope she doesn't mind me posting this here, but Heather wrote me an e-mail outlining her own thoughts on the Paris Hilton discussion, and I found them interesting enough to share with the rest of ya...

Okay, the trip about Paris Hilton is that she's as close as America comes to having royalty....PUT DOWN THAT HATCHET AND THINK ABOUT IT! Not like Queen Victoria, more like Prince Philip. (Remember him telling the British students studying at a college in China not to stay too long or they'd "go all slitty-eyed"? I always liked him talking about how the working class complained about not having any free time, then complained about being fired: that people just couldn't make up their minds.)

Royalty demands respect, but "civilians" watch them for the exact opposite.

See, America cast off the idea of "direct" royalty when George Washington refused the title of King. The "royalty" became (with a few notable exceptions) the wealthy. You'd look at them on the street and giggle, knowing how helpless they would be without someone to empty their chamberpots. Starve without a cook. Most couldn't even mount a horse without a flotilla of help. And the stupid things they say! See, they weren't really better than you, were they?

Money stayed the "king" maker, I believe until the invention of photography. True, there were illustrations in magazines and newspapers of the notables of their day, but most weren't enough that the average person could identify a performer on the street. Oddly, I think that changed around the time of the Stanford White murder. There were the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, the Thaws, and Stanford White, their trusted architect like a knight of the realm. He built their castles, attended their parties, and did all he could to make them look like monarchs. Then was murdered by Harry Thaw of the realm of Pittsburgh for defiling Thaw's wife, Evelyn Nesbitt, the fashion model.

Suddenly, a measure of the "royal" scrutiny began to fall on those who's claim to the spotlight came from something other than cash. But cash never left the picture. Look at Howard Hughes, the Kennedys (who were on the society pages for generations before going into politics), and the current twin terrors: Branson and Trump.

Conrad Hilton was well known by the gossip columns long before he married a Gabor. The few that have at least a minimum of talent and brains (like Queen Victoria or currently Branson) we grudgingly admire, make a few cracks, but in general we don't mind them. The ones that only have bank accounts and names (like Paris) we unload our ridicule on. They have all the cash they need to humiliate themselves on a phenomenal scale and we eagerly await the latest blunder.

Will age back it off? When gravity discovers a few body parts, will the fervor die down? Not a chance. Sorry, mein freud, you're probably stuck with her for life. Even if she tries to go into seclusion, she'll be followed, just like Garbo. Will she break Liz Taylor's wedding record? Will she get fat and dumpy? Will she end up like Howard Hughes? Think like Anna Nicole Smith: no matter what, someone will watch.

That answer it?

Excellently put, my friend. I especially find thought-provoking the paragraph about how these modern royals are on their pedestals simply for the rest of us to knock them off. Modern media has turned any and all celebrities into non-stop targets of ridicule, with wise-ass remarks and ego-bruising barbs replacing substantial commentary and discussion. I bet more people talked about how Ben Affleck's latest film went belly-up than they discussed the fact that we've lost a few hundred tons of explosives in Iraq.

Hell, I'm as guilty of it as anyone. Look at my first two Paris Hilton posts - I started out of a genuine curiosity, because I didn't know what she was famous for. And even though my question was born out of a simple lack of understanding, even I couldn't resist taking a few shots at her in the space of my post. Relatively weak shots, yes, but shots none the less. By implication, I ridiculed a woman who I've never met, never seen perform, and know almost nothing about. Why? Instinct, I guess. My instinct as a student of pop culture.

Which brings me to another question - what the heck is with the big deal over Ashlee Simpson's lip synching on SNL? So a technical foul-up caused her problems, and in a panic she blamed the wrong people. That may show a lack of class on her part, or more likely, a lack of maturity. But people can learn from their mistakes, and they do mature. What gets me is how so many people are so readily jumping on the bandwagon to crucify her for it. She had a foul-up on the second musical segment of SNL, with maybe 10 people watching at the time, and suddenly she's our new target du jour. Hell, the guys on ESPN's talking heads shows were ripping into her, as well, and last I checked, Ashlee has no connection to sports whatsoever. But she IS a pop figure, and she DID make a mistake, and now it's open season.

All I can say is, we in society have to be careful who we so quickly ridicule and scorn, and how we do it. Over the past few days the comparison I keep hearing is Milli Vanilli. Yes, Milli Vanilli did lip synch on their album. They then faced years and years of non stop mockery and public shame. Never again to be taken seriously as human beings, they became nothing more than an eternal punchline. Rob Pilatus decended into a life of drugs and arrest, and was found dead in a Frankfurt hotel room at the age of 32.

Maybe next time any of us, myself included, thinks of taking a cheap shot, maybe we should consider the lasting, and damaging, power those words can have.