[quote name='Apossum']well, it's nice to see you post up some good debate
This is about a judge finally putting his foot down on a celeb case. I wouldn't call people's reactions an "overwhelming" degree of outrage. Holding a celeb accountable is just something very interesting and long over due. If it were any high profile celeb, I would be supportive of the judge.[/quote]
Holding a celebrity or other well-known person accountable is fine and dandy. The Magna Carta is *how* many centuries old at this point?
Believe it or not, her highly publicized life does have an impact on society. First off, 1000s of hours of media coverage have been devoted to her and for what? That time could've been used for better coverage of the Iraq war, world politics etc. I'm not going to get in to the things she symbolizes, since I will sound more conservative than I am. I'll just say that some idiotic rich girl selling her body for popularity is not a good role model for anyone. At the very least, her lifestyle promotes aspirations to the highest order of materialism and apathy.
Here's where I start to disagree. I'm not going to go the route of camoor's "Bush and Cheney drunk drove!!!" argument, but here is what I will say: ***WE*** are the "media." We are not unwilling participants in the media spectacle; Anna Nicole Smith got coverage because it was a sensational narrative and an absurd personality - collectively, we like that sort of chaos. Paris was and is the same way.
Shortly, "media" is a two-way street. People magazine is not *forced* upon you, you buy it. You *choose* to watch Fox News and their abundant
coverage of Anna Nicole and their diminished coverage of the Iraq war relative to the other 24/7 news networks. There's a reason that you don't see copies of "Harper's," or "Mother Jones" magazine, or "Utne Reader" in the checkout lane of the grocery store: they don't sell. We'd rather pick up People, and their "OMG Kirstie Alley is SO FAT!" rag one week, and the next issue which is "OMG why are celebs TOO SKINNY!?!?!"
I'll say it again: media is a two-way street. I watch Wolf Blitzer on CNN because he insisted, during a production meeting last week, that the words "Paris Hilton" would not come out of his mouth while on air. I have to respect that, and if I want the news to become more like that, I have to contribute to those sorts of ratings. Right? If I want news mags, I have to buy "The Economist" or the aforementioned hifalutin' liberal rags. They won't have Paris Hilton in them.
You *can* go out of your way to hear everything and anything about Paris Hilton, so this sort of innocent "lil' ol' me just can't avoid hearing about her, oh I'm such a victim" claim is just nonsense.
We reciprocate with the media - if we look outside of "news," we can all see that being an awesome show didn't help Arrested Development stay on the air - there weren't enough people watching. THAT is the key to remember: news networks exist for ONE reason, and you're a fool if you think it is informing you. Their purpose in this world is to deliver you to their advertisers. Higher ratings means higher ad rates. If those higher ratings come from a "Talk of the Nation" style discussion on the genocide in Darfur (quick, if you're reading this, name the country Darfur is in: didn't think you could, either), then that's what they would show. If it's B-roll footage of Anna Nicole twittering about in a bikini, that's what they'll show.
Guess which one won? Worse than the content of the news programs is the feigned outrage by newscasters, followed by continuing coverage of the same shit. I think Nancy Grace went off on an assistant for showing "titty footage" (my phrase, not hers) of Paris the other week - and then continued to bring you up-to-the-minute information on Paris and her jail sentence. What
in' phonies.
That's my long-n-sweet. We *create* the media we watch, just like we *create* what prime time programs stay and go. It's based on viewership, which leads to ad revenue. It has nothing to do with informing you at all. Last of all, if you want to avoid Paris news nonstop, you *CAN* do it, so let's all drop the "attention whore" charade. Many people posting in this thread, even by reacting with "OMG what an attention whore!" attitude are knowingly reifing her status as just that.
I feel it's ridiculous that I'm even thinking about it. Part of my elation is that I've had to put up with this empty celebrity (she doesn't do anything) on a daily basis. That sounds more dramatic than it is, but you know what I mean--she gets too much attention, people discuss her antics too much, so it's nice to see a wrench get thrown in her system. I hope it slows down coverage of her life, though they say there's no such thing as bad publicity
My greatest hope is that this somehow influences her to use her celebrity for the cause of good, even if it's just for some shallow awareness of some worldly problem.
Celebrities that do things for the public good are shit on. See Bono and Al Gore as two examples. When was the last time you saw positive press coverage of those two?
If she hadn't gotten convicted, it's showing that when you're filthy rich, it's ok to do what you want. Though this concept is affirmed on a weekly basis in the media, this time it wasn't, which is great. Hopefully this judge will influence other judges.
edit: though I sympathize with your point about Bush and Cheney, I feel throwing presidents in jail would do more harm than good. Hopefully something bad will happen to both of them after they're out of office (or something bad in office that doesn't cause chaos...)
Hmm. I don't really think that this changes the "class=power" argument at all. It's a light sentence, she has been given severe amounts of preferential treatment - she's not getting the kind of sentence your run-of-the-mill drunk driver would.
Moreover, there are more examples of the wealthy and powerful who have committed crimes in the past 12 months who have gotten away without even a "slap on the wrist." As a matter of fact, there is a website database of those people:
www.nfl.com
