Jailbait Cul-chah

This is Paris Hilton's mug-shot. No, really. It is.

"Our long national nightmare is over. Paris Hilton is free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, she is free at last!" In a sense, we are all released. *

Far be it from me to drink from the "William Bennett" Kool-Aid (which recognizes every vice except gambling, supposedly), but there are times I succumb to "old geezer's disease" and just shake my extensions-less head and decry what the world is coming to. Lately there has been a spate of deb-celebs barely out of their teens crashing and burning. Britney Spears plunges into a bald-headed meltdown so complete it makes her ex, Kevin Federline, look like a pillar of stability (Exhibit A. Be afraid. Be very Afraid). And Lindsey Lohan is taking Britney's bunk in rehab when she's not using it. Then we have the ultimate example of "null-set" celebrity: Paris Hilton. Famous for standing in flashing light-bulbs and having a brand-name. Another in a long line of Vanderbilt's and Kennedy's and...Bush's, (do you think Billy Bush would have a job if it weren't for the name...Really?). No talent and no shame. Anna Nicole's lady-in-waiting. And this month, she seemed to be "peaking," making more mis-steps than anyone since Dick Van Dyke fell over the ottoman, getting herself sent to the slammer. The drama. The tears. The Sweeps. The talk with Barbara Walters. Even finding God (This happens so frequently in prison, I think for churches to be more effective they should have iron bars in their windows instead of stained glass). It may be a ratings period and all, but c'mo-oon! Do we have to go this far to get a spike in our cume's?

Call me cynical, but part of me sees all this activity as the ultimate carrying over of the new adage: "There is no such thing as bad publicity." Well, unless you use one of the "alphabet-words" or you're caught lip-syncing (Come to think of it where's Jessica Simpson's breakdown? Could we even tell?). Everything is fair game and whoever's on-top at the end of the news-cycle wins. At least, I hope these are all bids for attention for the media, because if they're not, then they are really, really "bids for attention"--cries for help of the highest screeching decibel. The extreme behavior and hysterics are not exactly what you would call good "role-model" behavior, and I'm not looking forward to the societal fall-out. I mean, when the rich-and-famous fall apart in a crisis with all the advantages at their disposal, what are the kids of us poor slobs supposed to do?

Part of me goes: "Yeah! Please! Dominate the news-cycle! "Breakdown 24/7" and blog the apology!" Because if there's enough exposure, there'll be the inevitable over-exposure, and at that point the ultimate sin will be committed: they'll become commonplace, as boring as the tabloid on the rack. And then there'll be no influence, except for the poredictable back-lash. How long before we go from "We'll always have Paris" to "Eeeuh! She skeeves me out!" Will the wash of material inspire this generation of women (or anyone, for that matter) to reject the slings and arrows (and Spears) of the worthless, hedonistic lifestyle, seeing it as a path to destruction? Will they take the high road, or the Lohan road? Will they see the consequences suffered as inevitable for the choices made from a life in the klieg-lights and heed the warnings, or run like moths to the filament, attracted to the tragedy like the cult of Judy Garland? I don't know. Part of me says these people aren't important, but anything so dominating the new-cycle has to have an impact.

Marlon Brando was constantly shocked at how the brutes he played on-screen (Stanley in "Streetcar..." and Johnny in "The Wild One"), try as he might to make them repugnant, still became pop-culture icons. I suppose that's what comes from having your face blown up to 40 feet across. Even "Frankenstein's Monster" became iconic. And Freddy Krueger. And Hannibal Lecter. People still grow up and make their own choices and navigate Life's mine-field. And sometimes they're attracted to what repels them.

But I look at those pictures and wonder: forward mug-shot, she flipped her hair to the side, and for the profile, she "allowed" a 3/4 view. To show her "good side," supposedly. The woman is being booked. Whatever is there in those photos (and one gets the impression that she saw it as "just another" photo-op), what is absent is any sense of shame. Did she look at this first step in the criminal justice system process and see it with no threat of punishment? Did she just assume she'd skate by without consequence? Whatever illusions she had at that point (and Ms. Hilton is all about illusion), it seems to have been shattered now (we'll see how long that lasts), but at the time the biggest illusion was the assumption that one can show a "good side" when it's a mug-shot.

* I wrote HTML code that bracketed the opening line with this: [sarcasm] [/sarcasm]. Interestingly enough, it translated into the blog, so you can't see it. So, Is it just me, or does sarcasm look exactly the same as my regular writing?

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Today's Bumper sticker: "I wish I was Barbie. That bitch has EVERYTHING!" (Apropos!)

Song in me head: Amy Winehouse "Rehab," coincidentally.