The American Nightmare

Mmm, some free time has done me good, giving me a chance to rest my brains and remove myself a little bit from the ever-so-hechtic world of politics and political blogging to refocus on what I love most about life–American culture and all the nasty, gooey gossip that goes along with it. I’m back, peeps! (All… 13 of you). And I have a feeling this blog will only get better now that I have a little more freedom.

So. Where to start? Where we left off, of course: Paris Hilton.

Now, I said I wasn’t going to blog about her anymore, and it’s been a blissful 23-or-so days since she was put back in the clink and the world has been so lovely and quiet and drama free since then. It’s been a wonderful break. But, as we all know (or should), she’s scheduled for release tomorrow which means she’s about to stick her ugly, plastic-y mug back in our faces and on our TV screens, only now she’ll be all preachy and angelic like a stint in jail is supposed to erase the fact that the whole reason she’s famous is because she starred in a sex tape, SEX TAPE. How do I know that? Because Yahoo! has a story about what Paris is going to do when she’s out and how she’s changed. Here’s the clip that caught my attention:

…Hilton and her family have hardly shied away from the media during her time behind bars. That constant attention, along with society’s “sick fascination with failure,” will make Hilton’s transition more challenging, Traube said.

“She has almost set herself up to fail because there’s been so much talk about how she’s a changed person, how she found religion and she prays all the time,” she said. “People are bitter for the notoriety she has for having done very little other than party, so they’re standing around waiting for her to fail.”

American society has a “sick fascination with failure”? I’m not entirely sure about that. Or, rather, I’m not entirely sure that what the Hiltons are using as an excuse for why their daughter got into so much trouble (as opposed to accepting the daughter’s complicity in breaking the law several times which tends, in this society, to lead to punishment) is actually a fascination with failure as much as it is a manifestation of the American dream.

I heard that “What??” all the way across the internets. I’ll explain.

The American Dream is the idea that anyone — no matter how poor, no matter how foreign — can come to America and through hard work and dedication rise through the social strata to the top levels of social and economic wealth. We all know it, we all believe it in, a lot of us work in awful, dead-end jobs because we’re so convinced that we’ll be able to make it. And a lot of us do. But we do this without really thinking about the ideals envisioned in the American Dream, and what happens after you achieve it. The vision of the American Dream incorporates two fundamentally American ideals: freedom from artistocracy and the protestant work ethic. The Hilton family certainly didn’t start out as multi-millionaire hotel owners; someone in the family had to work to be successful with one hotel and then expand it into a successful chain. There was that person, his name was Conrad Hilton and he died in 1979; the Hiltons are New Money. So Conrad fulfilled the American Dream, and Paris’s father probably had some hand in helping the company achieve success at some point, but essentially up until Paris and Nicky the Hilton family heirs were involved in running the business that was responsible for their good fortune and were therefore somehow still participating in the American Dream.

Paris and Nicky changed all that. Paris, especially, since she’s been the one to most openly and egregiously pursue the spotlight. Paris and Nicky are the most wealthy heiresses to date in the Hilton family, and the first to not feel like they needed to work in the family business to justify the kind of extravagance they enjoy. Instead, they set out to make themselves into celebrities, to make the American people love them without any of the work (yes, work) required of other celebrities to achieve their fame.* And Americans began to fall for it a little bit in the beginning. But it wasn’t long before our cultural DNA was rebelling. The idea of the American Dream is built so deeply into our cultural identity that there is no media or ideologue in existence that could ever begin to erase it.

Think about it: just about every person who ever set foot in America, from colonists and pilgrims to illegal immigrants today, came here because of the promise of the American Dream. 18th and 19th century Europeans saw America as their rescue from the oppressive aristocracy, a place where they could find success and stability. France even had a revolution based on our Dream. And in the 20th century we became the saviors of the poor. It’s a hard burden to bear as a country, but it’s one we’re conditioned to accept and even celebrate from the moment we are born. That is what makes us Americans, that is our most defining cultural trait. Paris Hilton flies in the face of all of that. She was born at the top — one of the people who comprise the small and amorphous American artistocracy — and she as eschewed work in favor of celebrity to flaunt money she hasn’t earned for herself. Our American DNA rages at this, boils and screams and gnashes its teeth in pain over how incredibly anti-American it is.

And then, we rebel. We start to focus on whether or not she has herpes, who she’s fighting with, how spoiled she is and how stupid she is. We celebrate her misfortunes, like her DUI, and we come damn close to turning her truly frightening experience in the justice system into an impromptu national holiday. And I include myself in that “we,” because this blog got more hits on the day I live-blogged Paris’s journey back to jail than it got in the previous month combined. We truly do become fascinated with her failures. So when Kathy Hilton — another spoiled Hilton brat — lashes out at the press and Americans for having a “sick fascination with failure,” she’s not quite wrong. But she’s certainly not right. We’re not fascinated with failure; we’re fascinated with equality. And when the unspoken aristocracy begins to behave like the aristocracy, we’re not about to lie down and take it. This is America, remember?

Hm.

–Sara Tenenbaum

*Even the brattiest, most spoiled celebrities do something to become celebrities. Now, yes, we’re seeing a rise in “celebutantes” like Paris and Nicole, but the majority of these annoying early-20s It Girls actually worked at something to get where they are now (Mischa Barton and “The OC”, Lindsay Lohan and “Mean Girls”). They may have had it easy from early on, and they may be a bizarre and slightly frightening breed, but even they gave in to the meritocracy of the American Dream a little bit.

Completely Unexpected Political Alignment of the Day

You guys remember Toby Keith, right? The absolutely obnoxious country singer who went apeshit when the Dixie Chicks spoke out against Bush and who penned “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)”? Well, here’s a truly unexpected tidbit about him from Michelle Cottle’s column about anti-war country music in the newest issue of The New Republic:

Not that country music is about to go all Country Joe & the Fish on us. This is not “protest music” by any definition, and most mainstream country folks wouldn’t dream of doing anyhting that could be construed as making common cause with the antiwar crowd. (It’s worth nothing, though, that Toby Keith, of all people, never supported the Iraq war–”Courtest of the Red, White and Blue” was inspired by Afghanistan–and favors a timeline for troop withdrawl.)

[bold added by me]

Really? Really?

–Sara Tenenbaum

No More Paris

I will not be writing about Paris Hilton anymore, at least not until she does something else worth writing about. I don’t care anymore, now that she’s back in jail. Part of the reason I was so happy she was going back is because I would have a few weeks off from her (the same reason I was delighted to see Lindsay Lohan head back to Promises… good riddance!)

In the meantime, I will post funny news bits (as I do) and irrelevant stories (as I do) and probably a lot more having to do with celebrities (which I love).

But no more Paris. Not for a while.

– Sara Tenenbaum

Paris Goes to Jail — Final Thoughts

I figured that, because of all the glee I took in Paris’ return to jail today, I owed you guys a post to tell you why I was so delighted to see this happen.

To put it simply, I wanted to see fairness.

There are people all over America, every day, who are completely innocuous people, law-abiding citizens most of the time, who find themselves in trouble. Maybe it’s because the got caught with pot, or because they drove home from the bar. The point is, it’s things that ALL Americans do nearly every day. And when these people get caught, they have to spend a terrible night in jail, go to court and alcohol programs, and be subject to the horrific rules of supervised and unsupervised probation for any amount of time between 6 months and several years. These normal people — people without the money to pay for things like drivers or bodyguards to help them — have to appear in court and deal with the consequences. They must keep themselves out of trouble, and they do. If they don’t then they end up in jail. And, like normal people, they have to deal with that too.

Paris had access to a million and one things to make her life easier. Drivers. Bodyguards. Publicists. Parents. Friends. She could afford to drink $500 worth of liquor to herself and catch a cab home. The amount of arrogance and lack of respect for her peers in her actions that led to this sentence in the first place is appalling. And the idea that she could get out of jail for being scared and vulnerable is even moreso.

This is justice; not because she’s being treated worse than normal people — as some, like her parents, have claimed — but because she’s being treated exactly the same.

–Sara Tenenbaum

PARIS GOES BACK TO JAIL!!!!

Oh Hallelujah, justice has been served! I know this all pales to Iraq and all that other shit that the Administration has done, but I feel like this is the first sign that Karma is heading back into the black.

Read all about it at TMZ

(Apologies for the brevity–it’s my last day at work, and my bosses got me champagne. They’re far, far too kind.)

–Sara Tenenbaum

Paris Jail Watch – Notes From The Courtroom

Update: 3:07 p.m. EDT: Here’s the latest, from TMZ, about what’s going on at court:

1. The Judge is ripping the Sherrif’s department a new one:

Judge Michael Sauer said that before Paris was released, he was contacted by the Sheriff and told they would file a motion to place Paris under house arrest. The judge said the motion was never filed, and added, “There’s no way I would have approved it even if I got the motion.”

The prosecutor, Dan Jeffries, who is also pissed at the Sheriff, accused the Sheriff of “assuming all three roles of the criminal justice system,” claiming “Sheriff Lee Baca is interpreting the law all by himself.”

Sweet.

2. The Judge (now known as The Judge of Awesomeness) is not buying Paris’s “medical condition”:

The judge has just addressed the court and said, “I don’t know why the defendant couldn’t be treated at Lynwood, because they have a great medical facility.”

Double sweet.

Updates will continue to be posted as I read them.

–Sara Tenenbaum

Why Paris Should Go To Jail: An Informed Opinion

Adding to my Paris coverage of the day, Salon.com has a great piece about Paris Hilton and why we want to see her go to jail so, so badly. I recommend reading the whole thing, but this is my favorite excerpt:

Paris has come to embody the angst of our increasing sense of powerlessness — she’s the blonde whom we punish, because we understand her crimes. We don’t really understand all the crimes of the administration — congressional bribes, organized mass deceit via domestic propaganda, policy fixing, violations of privacy and human rights.

Those are too legally complicated. While we were busy ogling Lindsay’s drug binges, Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” and Britney’s shaved head, our leaders larded us with misinformation, illegally invaded another country, murdered we-don’t-even-have-any-idea-how-many innocent civilians (not to mention independent journalists), stole a nation’s oil, tortured enemy prisoners, quietly bankrupted our economy and our international moral standing in service to the short con of military Keynesianism, effectively built Dick Cheney his own private Praetorian Guard, and ushered in the most serious threat to American freedom in our history: the very real threat of despotism.

God, that is depressing. Hooker! Where’s the hooker? “If you put Paris in jail, you feel like you haven’t been screwed by the Man,” said a friend of mine. “If Paris goes to jail, there is still a middle class. There’s still an illusion of hope. We’re not the Philippines, yet. There’s still some kind of justice, and we’re not all just fucked.”

–Sara Tenenbaum

Paris Jail Watch – Send Her Back! Edition

Ok. So I wrote a long rant about Paris Hilton an hour ago. That taught me two things:

1. I’m going to be following this story all day, and getting it off my chest feels good.

2. The words “Paris Hilton” got me 2 hits in 10 minutes (this is huge for a blog that gets excited when it gets 20 hits in a day), and therefore will work to my advantage. So:

Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton Paris Hilton.

Don’t forget to bookmark!

So here’s the story so far:

Paris had been told she must appear in court today at 9 a.m. (PDT):

The Los Angeles City Attorney has filed a motion asking the judge who sentenced Paris Hilton to have her returned to jail to serve out her full sentence. In the documents obtained by TMZ, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is also asking Judge Michael Sauer to hold a hearing, demanding that the Sheriff’s Department show why it should not be held in contempt of court for violating Judge Sauer’s May 4, 2007 order, which expressly stated “no electronic monitoring.” Late this afternoon, the judge granted the request for a hearing, which is now scheduled for 9:00 AM PDT tomorrow.
[Source]

Earlier this morning, TMZ reported that Paris had requested to appear in court by telephone. There are various reasons for this, but none were given. The City Attorney argued against it (apparently there was a huge fight in court this morning over it) and at about 8:45 PDT, the Judge ordered Paris to appear in person.

At around 9:15 PDT, Paris appeared in court. The hearing is going on now.

Update: 1:15 pm EDT: Ok. I was wrong. The hearing is not yet started; the people who had arrived at the courthouse were Paris’ lawyer and the prosecuter for the case. Thankfully, FoxNews and MSNBC have been keeping tabs on the heiress and THIS is a picture of the po-lice car rolling up to her house:

Update: 1:29 p.m.: Paris has been HANDCUFFED and put in the back of a police cruiser. She’s going to court right now.

Update: 1:58 p.m.: Paris, and her parents, entered the courthouse through a private, covered back entrance. The countdown to return to jail begins… NOW.

This post will continue to be updated with news, so check back.

–Sara Tenenbaum

Did Bush Fall off the Wagon?

We all knew that he fell off the turnip truck to get to the White House, but is Bush off the wagon now too?

Towleroad has pictures of Bush at a G8 luncheon in Germany yesterday (sitting next to PM Merkel) drinking a beer. If we all think real hard, we’ll remember that Bush Jr. is a recovering alcoholic (and has been since the 70s). Clearly, alcoholics are not supposed to drink beer.

For the sake of reason, there is a chance he is drinking “non-alcoholic” beer (though that is a misnomer… there is no such thing as non-alcoholic beer, and the beers that advertise themselves as such actually a very low alcohol level. Alcoholics are discouraged from drinking so-called “near beer”). Either way, this could be hilarious or bad… real bad.

He’s crazy enough when he’s sober. Can you imagine him “governing” drunk?

–Sara Tenenbaum

Why Paris Belongs In Jail

Fine. You’ve done it, media, you’ve forced me to comment on this Paris Hilton bullshit. I resent being made to do this, but seeing as how I can’t find anyone else to say what I’m thinking, I suppose I’ll just have to go ahead and say it myself.

Paris Hilton belongs in jail, and she should go back. Not just because the three days she spent in the pokey were filled with an incredibly welcome Paris Hilton Gossip Silence, but because it’s time that rich celebrities/heiresses/etc. stopped getting the kind of special treatment they expect in L.A.

Let me explain.

Paris was not sent to jail for her DUI — that’s something that should be cleared up from the start. Other B- C- and D-list celebrities have jumped to her defense by pointing out that the people criticizing her did not criticize Michelle Rodriguez for serving only 2 hours of her 60-day sentence. The difference here is twofold:

1. Michelle Rodriguez was sentenced to 60 days after pleading Guilty to a DUI charge, and opting — of her own free will — to serve a shorter jail sentence than a (probably very) long term of probation. Paris, by contrast, was sentenced to 45 day (originally) for twice driving with a suspended license; once possibly without her full awareness, and the second time while she was fully aware of the fact that she was not allowed to be driving. While Michelle accepted responsibility and chose jail time, Paris flaunted her celebrity status, and assumed that people would ignore the fact that she was violating court orders and sentencing because she is famous. Her desperate attempts to get out of trouble after being caught — TWICE! — were pathetic and embarassing to watch.

2. Michelle was bounced from prison in 2 hours because of overcrowding, and not because she was “suffering from a health problem.” If Paris had been bounced for overcrowding it would be one thing — I understand not keeping minor offenders in a jail that needs room for people who are more dangerous and violent. But that’s not what happened. Paris, instead, freaked out and demanded to be sent home.

It boggles my mind that the jail agreed to this. That ANYONE let her go. Nevermind the fact that it was expressly written in her sentencing agreeemnt that electronic monitoring was not to be used in lieu of jail time; that they let this little spoiled girl throw a fit, cry some and get sent home is incredibly incensing. Of COURSE jail isn’t fun! No one is surprised she was having a “nervous breakdown” from being in jail. It should be the scariest thing you ever experience in your life. That’s one of the reasons we send criminals there — the experience is supposed to deter you from breaking the law ever again! But just because you don’t feel like you’re equipped to deal with it doesn’t mean they should let you out; and especially if you’re Paris Hilton. I am, in general, completely against using the judicial system to over-punish, but there are people who need to have it beaten into them that they are not above the law, that they are subject to the same rules and therefore the same punishment as everyone else.

God, she is such a disgusting human being.

–Sara Tenenbaum