While we here at DU sometimes stoop to — to be kind — “oddball” stuff at times, Paris Hilton stories are on a whole different level. However, if you read this article/interview/analysis on her, you’ll find she may be smarter than all of us. A postmodern model for feminists, entrepreneurs and marketers everywhere from whom we could learn much as she rakes in the money from us suckers.
Media professor Robert Thompson, of Syracuse University, has said that she plays her naivety “like a finely tuned instrument”, and that she is “as savvy about how celebrity works in modern culture as Warhol”. Meanwhile, Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, went to town on Hilton’s image. “The pigeon-toed I’m-a-little-girl thing combined with the deliberate strategic convergence of pornography as entree into superstardom. She’s always smiling, she never says much of anything, she’s totally uncontroversial, she’s managed to create a construct that is completely explicitly sexually available and completely innocent and naive and girlish at the same time. She’s very soothing. It’s like white noise in an over-stimulated environment. Paris Hilton is like a palette cleanser. She’s like, as semiotics would say, an empty signifier, so you can project absolutely anything on to her, which is the perfect situation for branding.”
I got something I’d project on her….
Okay… Sorry… I don’t buy it for a milisecond. Maybe, as the article implies, she is smart and aware. I can buy that. I just don’t care. The only thing I as a normal, struggling, lower-middle-class working stiff can know from my vantage point in the flyover states is what image is being projected. That image is ugly. Daddy’s spoiled bitch throwing tantrums overa 5 minute wait at Spago. But worse, it sets an example that stupid is cute (it isn’t) – beauty (if you go for that waif thing) is what makes one person better than another – and work, for pretty girls, is optional.
Even worse yet, her meaningless existence in the media adds nothing of any value in any way to the culture at large. She’s a waifish blonde distraction, which would be okay if she could act or sing or juggle or do anything. When I see stories about these non-celeb celebrities, it just irks me. Never mind mass genocide in Africa. Forget rape and torture in Iraq. Never mind the skyrocketing price of gas despite record oil profits. Are you concerned about the quality of your child’s education? HEY LOOK – Paris Hilton is drunk and her tits are hanging out! Quick! Hit record on the Tivo!
I already made this observation a long time ago. When dvorak made comment on how genius it is that bush is playing dumb & reaching the top position not once but twice.
Same goes w/ Paris Hilton! Despite having a Sex Tape, a string of bad publicity which could ruined an average celebrity. She manages to take everything in stride by just smiling, posing & waving her hand! All the while making chunks of money from books, music, perfumes & tv shows.
But I agree she isn’t your typical blond! She takes cues from alot books! On her tv show she even gave a kid advice by saying “If you don’t wanna do chores, do everything wrong that way you’d never have to do it again!”. Trust she I think reads Machiavelli to heart!
And yet, you felt the need to comment, so apparently she is marketing herself successfully. As P.T. was attributed to have said, “There is no such thing as bad publicity.”
Like her or don’t like her, talented or not, she has marketed herself quite well and is reaping financial benefits that most only dream of. This is similar to Madonna 20 years ago.
1. “media professors,” along with other media babblers, have to justify their tenure and fat salaries somehow. One of the prime ways of doing this is pointing out something they can maintain that rest of us just aren’t getting – such as the supposed savvy of Paris Hilton. If one is going to keep those cushy spots, one must plumb where there are no depths.
Example – note how the Guardian describes the porn video as seeming like something that Paris herself would have done for a publicity stunt “until you watch it.” Compare that with Naomi Wolf’s assertion of a “deliberate strategic convergence of pornography as entree into superstardom.” The Guardian reporter’s view seems valid – the cynical, “oh, no publicity is bad publicity,” tempered with the real-world view that even a person who exploits her looks like Paris Hilton would not want millions of people to see this particular video.
This article really reveals more about “media analysis” which is worth a critique, than Paris Hilton, who gets far more ink and pixels than she deserves.
I agree. She is marketed successfully.
But she isn’t marketed successfully to the “me” demographic. Yes, I am aware of her. No, I haven’t bought any Hilton related products. I don’t even stay at daddy’s hotel when I travel.
The reason people like me comment on people like her is in the remote hope that by doing so, someone else might think, “yeah, she ain’t all that. Let’s switch to something more relevant in our lives.”
That, and its a really slow day at work.
I think I speak for everyone else when I say, “Meh”.
1. HEY LOOK – Paris Hilton is drunk and her tits are hanging out! Quick! Hit record on the Tivo!
Spot on.
People waste time anal-yzing her, when they should be looking at her audience… the mouth-breathers who fund her “lifestyle”.
Who else would be interested in “…she talks frankly to Simon Hattenstone about Nicole Richie, that home video and why she plans on being celibate for a year…”
With that kind of advance warning, who would read any farther…?
Reminds me of the opposition to Walmart.
Lots of people protest when a Walmart tries to move into the area, but if one is able to open – it packs’em in.
Case in point: Neighborhood association in Gresham, OR was celebrating when they defeated a 200k-ft2 Supercenter moving into a defunct QFC building. The winning argument – the enormous amount of vehicle traffic the store would generate… think about that… “please don’t let them build here because it would be spectacularly successful“…
Then Walmart – which had never claimed the vehicle-traffic numbers were inflated – “shocked” everyone and bought the QFC property anyway, and re-applied for a 122k-ft2 which would draw less traffic…
http://www.ci.gresham.or.us/w-m/
“Build it, and they will come.”
Corollary:
“Talk about her, and they will listen”
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so where are the nekked pics?
This is a pop-culture writer, one of those guys who gets his jollies finding Malkavian subtext in episode 263 of “The Andy Griffith Show”.
Wolfrum… Your point is well taken.
She didn’t invent it, but boy has she perfected the “attention whore” model. (Remember how she first burst on the scene?)
First, she is not marketing herself to the crowd that reads Dvorak Uncensored.
Second, the people she is marketing herself to, are probably the same as her. Very self centered, wannabes trying to join the “in crowd”.
Third, what is she selling? Madonna, Simpson, Spears, at least, are all promoting artistic careers with some artistic abilities in order to sell records and movies.
Sorry, I really cannot see the selling of a blonde bimbo as some act of marketing genius. That’s as tough as selling french fries or ice cream. Any analysis of this is pretty much wasted effort.