Salem Falls

In reponse to Rex Jory's admonisment of evil Paris Hilton in today's (B)Advertiser:

In a world where consumers of child pornography are let off with good behavior bonds because the judge has determined curiosity and boredom to be the driving motivator “rather than any particular purient interest” (The Advertiser, 14/06/07), the animalistic furore surrounding Paris Hilton really beggars belief.

Short of gathering an angry mob and marching to the Hilton palace with flaming pitchforks, the general public’s reaction to Hilton’s incarceration has been one of puritanical judgement. And like the Puritans before them, this modern day witch burning is a mask for something far more insidious and perverse.

Paris Hilton may be a boring, vapid and over exposed young woman who found fortune through family and fame through a widely distributed (though not by her) and relatively dull home made skin flick – but she’s also one of the most recognized people in the Western world. Even people who claim to have no interest in popular culture know who Paris Hilton is, what she’s doing, and where she’s doing it.

As well as knowing these intimate details, everyone has an opinion on the heiress and they’re more than happy to share it. Some people worship her (to the disgust of all Paris’ opponents) while others decry her as the vilest of all God’s creatures, a femme fatale, a bad apple. Her recent prison escapades have brought the worst out in all her critics. Cries that she should be locked up, given a beating, stripped of her luxuries and given a taste of ‘the real world’ all spew forth from salivating voyeurs who claim to care about due process but really just want Justice. Paris must pay – not for a relatively minor traffic indiscretion, but for daring to behave as if the rules don’t apply to her. She has to be punished for being sexual, self obsessed, boring, rich, beautiful, bitchy, vapid and ultimately uninterested in the poor opinion the world has of her. More importantly, she has to be punished in a way that maximizes the potential for absolute humiliation.

The vilification of Paris is part of a wider backlash against Hollywood’s modern day Brat(z) Pack. The idea of Girls Behaving Badly has become the new money pusher with tabloid magazines. Lindsay Lohan is the current favourite to plaster across front covers looking the worse for wear. “LINDAY’S COLLAPSE! RUSHED TO REHAB! FRIENDS WARN, ‘YOU’LL DIE!’” is just one example of standard tabloid fodder these days. In intricate detail, we’re shown what happens when young women stray from the path of moral righteousness. Unflattering photographs of them stumbling from taxis with their skirts up around their ears fetch thousands of dollars for paparazzi cowboys. Pictures of them taken from bad angles are plastered with the words ‘booze bloat!’ while tales of late night debauchery are recounted gleefully around the proverbial water cooler. Good grief! You’d think we were all dressed from head to toe in muslin sacks and still believed that rock ‘n’ roll was the devil’s music.

Invariably, these young women garner unfavourable comparisons to their more ladylike peers. Scarlett Johansson is quoted discussing self pride. Mandy Moore declares she just doesn’t like to party. Even Ashley Olson is unofficially hailed as the ‘uncomplicated’ twin. Their fresh faces are juxtaposed against the supposed drug fuelled, sex crazed, promiscuous Witches of Beverley Hills. Will the descent into Madonna/Whore paradigms ever get less predictable?

Here’s the scoop. Paris Hilton and her cohorts may have more money than the Devil himself but this doesn’t necessarily make them handmaidens of the dark lord. Their basic behaviour is no different to most young people today. They drink, they smoke, they experiment with sex and drugs. They’re certainly not partying it up in a Sapphic pocket of Hollywood (though imagine the tabloid scandal), so tell me – where are all the articles shovelling judgmental scorn on their male partners in crime? Personally, I find the paternalistic insistence on punishing the Brat(z) Pack for being sexual and wild far more offensive than the behaviour of the girls themselves. After all, women do have sex you know and sometimes they even like to do it with the light on. As newly ladyfied Christina Aguilera sings on her new album, “I still got the nasty in me”. And it’s the ‘nasty’ that people hate so much, the self obsession, the complete disregard for other people’s opinions and the wild sexual abandon that is embraced by girls like Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. Traffic misdemeanours are just a smokescreen.

Consider this. Just yesterday, The Advertiser featured a story on Matthew Newton and his appeal against a recorded conviction. A recorded conviction for a crime he had pleaded guilty to. A crime that involved punching and assaulting his former girlfriend.

Who’s holding the pitchforks now? Where are the calls for Newton to be ‘locked away’ and ‘taught a lesson’? Newton instead enjoys the continued support of one of Australia’s most celebrated actors while dating said actor’s young daughter. I have yet to hear anyone demanding to know where Bert and Patti ‘went wrong’.

Domestic violence is an excusable offence it would seem. Newton’s lawyers and friends have declared he was in a highly emotional place when he assaulted Brooke Satchwell. He’s probably really sorry about it, and he IS our Bert’s son. And didn’t you all think he was jolly funny on Thank God You’re Here? As George said in Blackadder Goes Forth, “Oh go on, let him off Your Honour! After all, it’s a lovely day outside!”

But then, every day is a beautiful day when you’ve got a witch to burn.

Peace out (burn baby burn)