Somebody needs to help me here. I am struggling - indeed, have struggled - to understand what the fascination is with Paris Hilton. What does the media see in her? What do the celebrity following public see in her?
I decided to do a little digging to figure out exactly who she is, where she comes from, and to maybe - just maybe - figure this strange phenomena out a bit. Where to begin?
Paris Whitney Hilton is the oldest of four children born to Richard Hilton and Kathy Richards. Richard Hilton is the grandson of Conrad Hilton - the founder of the famous “Hilton” hotel chain. It might interest you to know that Paris is also the niece of the (now grown up) children that appeared in “Little House on the Prairie”. She went to school in New York, and later in California, but dropped out and didn’t attend college. So kids - listen to me - if you have any kind of qualification, you are one up on Paris Hilton.
In the early “naughties” (as the 2000, 2001, 2002 years seem to have become known), Paris slowly became a darling of the media - being seen in the right places at the right times. The rise to fame resulted in her being cast for a television show in the US called “The Simple Life”, which bizarrely advertised the fact that Paris was spoiled, precocious, immature, ignorant, and mostly uneducated - usually highlighted by creating “entertainment” around her working for people who she would invariably let down immediately.
In the days leading up to the debut of “The Simple Life”, a sex tape surfaced on the internet apparently showing Paris and an ex boyfriend. As with many such incidents, the media speculated that the tape had been released on purpose (following the age old maxim that no publicity is bad publicity).
Once upon a time I heard Eddy Murphy say that “Elvis could sing so good they let him make movies, and he damn couldn’t act”… the same seems to be true of Paris and modelling. She is signed to the Ford and Premier model agencies, among others. The mystery here (to me) is how she ever became a model - I spent a long time finding a nice photo of her to put at the top of this entry. Imagine how hard the photographer’s job is going to be if I had to trawl through hundreds of photos to find one.
Here lies another “problem” (or benefit, depending on your point of view) with Paris - to find a good portrait photo, I had to trawl through hundreds of semi naked photos of her. I gather if a photographer turns up anywhere near Paris, her bikini top is likely to “accidentally” fall off - or she might have to bend over double right in front of the camera to pick something up… hardly subtle. This of course follows itself through to it’s natural conclusion - she has appeared in Playboy. I don’t think I need to say much more.
It’s funny - I started writing this entry to try and find out more about Paris Hilton - and it appears there isn’t really that much to find out. It’s worrying that our society can elevate somebody to such heights of celebrity when all they have really done is display traits that would normally cause the reverse. Perhaps she is the first “Anti-Celebrity”. Perhaps this is a new branch of physics - for every Christina there is a Britney, and for every Basinger, there is a Paris…