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Paris Hilton & Amerikkka: Two Commentaries
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn’t Fit
Informed Comment – Jun 10, 2007
http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/paris-hilton-iraqi-prisoners-american…
Paris Hilton & Iraqi Prisoners
by Juan Cole
American cable news has been fixated on the jailing of socialite Paris
Hilton for the past week, on grounds that she twice violated the
probation sentence she earlier received for drunk driving. They
interrupted coverage of world leaders at the G8. They briefly spliced
in Gates’s decision not to reappoint Peter Pace as chairman of the
joint chiefs of staff. A new frenzy broke out with every tiny twist .
She was brave, she was weeping, she was mentally fragile. She was
released, she was rejailed, she shouted it was unfair and cried, she
was undergoing psychiatric evaluation.
Just for a little perspective, we could consider the news from Iraq on
Saturday. Incoming mortar fire from guerrillas hit Bucca prison,
killing 6 inmates and wounding 50.
The US military is holding 19000 Iraqis, 16000 of them at Bucca.
Although most are guerrillas or their helpers, a lot of them were
picked up because they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Once arrested, an inmate often cannot clear himself for months or
years. I don’t think they have access to attorneys. No one cares if
they are depressed. At Abu Ghraib earlier on, some inmates were
systematically tortured. It is unlear if all such practices have ceased.
Some Iraqi women have been held in this way. Some were essentially
hostages, taken to make them reveal where their husbands or fathers
were or to guarantee their good behavior. Their reputations were shot,
since Iraqis think Americans are sex fiends and wouldn’t trust the
virtue of a woman who had been in their custody. The unmarried among
them are likely doomed to be spinsters.
American television never mentions that the US has 19000 Iraqis in
jail, or that some have been women, or that some are innocent, or how
they feel about being in prison.
So is Paris Hilton being given special treatment by our media? We all
are, folks.
posted by Juan @ 6/10/2007 06:29:00 AM
***
CounterPunch – Jun 9, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp06092007.html
The Unfair Treatment of Paris Hilton
"Mommy, It’s Not Right!"
By GARY LEUPP
June 8. I’m in the midst of a column about the planned U.S. attack on
Iran, but I have to interrupt that project to comment on the breaking
news about Paris Hilton.
"It’s not right!" she shouted to the judge ordering her back to the
jail she’d been freed from a day earlier, before she was hauled away
weeping.
No, nothing about this is right.
Here’s a young woman who came into our lives in August 2003, just as
the mainstream press was timidly beginning to question the Bush
administration lies justifying the invasion of Iraq. There were no
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the people were already
rebelling against the occupation. In that context of uncertainty, Paris
burst onto the scene, a rich heiress socialite party girl, in our faces
on the internet, spreading for boyfriend Rick Salomon and pleasuring
him orally. Relatively few saw the clip of course, but we all heard
about it, and associated this emerging personality with internet porn.
It was perhaps unfair because there is so much more to Paris.
While stating she was "humiliated" by Rick’s posting of the video,
Paris accepted the situation with good humor, joking about it on TV as
she went on to pursue her career as model, actress, singer, heiress and
socialite.
She wasn’t just fellating Rick but all of us, when America needed it
most. Those accessing the readily available footage will notice her
pubes were shaved. Were they only shaved for Rick, whom she soon
discarded? No, I believe they were shaved for all of us, representing
childlike innocence lost. A pudendum shining hairless for you, and for
me, as the nation descended deeper and deeper into darkness.
Already 22, Paris had dropped out of the prestigious Dwight School in
the Upper West Side of New York unfairly hounded by the accusation that
"Dwight" stood for "Drunk White Idiots Getting High Together." But she
had acquired her General Education Degree (GED), serving as a role
model for other dropouts who have the courage and fortitude to also
take the challenging GED exam.
Just as the porn video came out Paris launched a career playing herself
in a reality television series about socialites in real-world
situations airing on the prestigious Fox network. In that series, she
walked through cow manure in stilettos, made sausages, worked as a maid
at a nudist resort. She became a Donald Trump model. She appeared in
minor roles in films and released an album, Paris, on her very own
label, Heiress Records, which might some day release a second album by
her or someone else.
In May 2004 Paris released her "Paris Hilton" perfume. "I mixed all
these scents together…it smells so good," she explained as she
continued to enrich our culture. It is true that her appearance on
Saturday Night Life in 2005 (in which she hyped the video with Rick)
was panned by some persnickety critics, and Tina Fey later nastily
called her a "piece of shit" and "unbelievably dumb." But she had
unleashed a chain of nightclubs, and there were more nude photos of her
on the net. So it made prefect sense for Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman
to proclaim August 29, 2006 "Paris Hilton Day."
On that day in 1862, the Second Battle of Bull Run began. On that day
in 1966, the Beatles performed their last public concert. On that day
in 1944, American troops liberated Paris. Surely Goodman had these
historical events in mind as he honored our Paris.
It is sad that on September 7, 2006, at the height of her powers, Paris
was pulled over by a member of the notorious LAPD on suspicion of
drunken driving. Her blood alcohol content was just 0.08%. Taking
advantage of her low tolerance level for alcohol, and lack of
experience driving responsibly after a few beers, the officer arrested
Paris. The court suspended her driver’s license and she received a 36
month probabtion sentence plus a $1,500 fine. She was ordered to attend
an alcohol-education program but apparently didn’t. This is
understandable. It was probably an AA program with a "higher power"
religious content and the requirement that everybody hold hands. I can
see why Paris would reject that.
Unbowed by this setback, Paris continued to drive through the streets
of Los Angeles and on January 15 was pulled over for driving with a
suspended license. She signed a document acknowledging that she wasn’t
permitted to drive, but didn’t let the Man cramp her style. On February
27 was pulled over for driving without her lights on 70 miles per hour
in a 35 mile per hour zone. LA prosecutors threw the book at her,
finding her in violation of the terms of her probation.
But Paris’s many admirors campaigned for her freedom of any punishment,
posting the following petition online addressed to California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Paris Whitney Hilton is an American celebrity and socialite. She is an
heiress to a share of the Hilton Hotel fortune, as well as to the real
estate fortune of her father Richard Hilton. She provides hope for
young people all over the U.S. and the world. She provides beauty and
excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives.
Hilton is notable for her leading roles on the FOX reality series The
Simple Life and in the remake of the Vincent Price horror classic
"House of Wax." In addition to her work as an actress, she has achieved
some recognition as a model, celebrity spokesperson, singer, and writer.
Now, if that doesn’t move you, you’re just not human. But on May 4, a
cruel and biased Judge Michael T. Sauer sentenced Paris to 45 days in
jail on this dubious charge of violating her probation.
The day after she appeared on the MTV awards, Paris dutifully reported
to the Century Regional Detention Center where she was given a private
cell so she would not be sexually abused by any ugly people. She has
since thanked the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and staff of
for treating" her "fairly and professionally." But confinement was too
much for this sensitive young woman, whom a psychologist ascertained,
was on the verge of a nervous breakdown within five days of
confinement. Accordingly the Detention Center authorities released her,
ordering her to serve the remaining 40 days of her sentence under house
arrest at her home on Kings Road in Hollywood Hills.
But then, the hate. The pettiness. The unfairness.
The Rev. Al Sharpton denounced the early release, claiming it had "all
of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism." Obviously he had
it out for Paris, just because her former friend Brandon Davis told the
press that the heiress regularly refers to black people using the
n-word. Given protests about the reduced sentence, Sauer ordered Paris
back to jail. He gave no explanation at all for his ruling! But
obviously powerful and influential people were behind this decision.
Outside the courtroom, Jake Byrd of Chino spoke for the millions whose
lives have been touched by this woman who once told the British press
"There’s nobody in the world like me. I think every decade has an
iconic blonde—like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana— and right now,
I’m that icon."
"No! No! No!" Jake screamed as a court spokesman announced the verdict.
Oh, the horror of this. What sort of person, looking at that photo of
Paris, hand-cuffed and humiliated, sitting in the back seat of a police
car, disheveled, without her make-up, her lovely features contorted
with suffering, tears streaming down her face, would not be moved by
the injustice pervading our society?
What will become of this candle in the wind?
I for one will be unable during these next 40 days to think of
Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib without thinking too of Paris in the Detention
Center. It’s just not right.
[Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct
Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants,
Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors:
The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is
also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on
Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades. He can be reached
at: gle...@granite.tufts.edu ]
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