Collegiate Times

There is a fine line in the entertainment world between fame and celebrity. The former is usually acquired as a result of objective talent in athletics, music, or film while the latter seems to be increasingly more due to peculiarity in character. In today’s cult of personality, celebrity is a recognition given disproportionately to talent—often instead of it. Sadly, in the case of women, it is often granted in proportion to the amount of skin they are willing to expose and the distance beyond healthy social behavior they regularly venture—achievements most unworthy of celebration.

Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith would have never risen from obscurity were it not for their Playboy magazine coverage, or uncoverage, as it were. Monroe actually exhibited some talent, but without the sought-after Hugh Heffner Crown de Fuzzy Bunny, she would have remained on the B-list. Miss Hilton, in the same fashion, was merely a daughter of someone with a well-known name until her breakthrough performance in a homemade porn video that would make a Playboy debut seem respectable. (Or so I’ve read, I’ve honestly not seen it.)

When Mel Gibson gets a DUI, it is a notable event because Mel Gibson is worthy of public attention. If Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome was his only achievement (let alone the Lethal Weapon trilogy, Braveheart, or the Passion of the Christ) he is a hundred times more worthy of celebrity than this sassy young club-hopper. Britney, at Paris’s same age of twenty-six, with similar stardom struggles, is a Nobel laureate of lasting cultural contribution—in comparison.

Everyone, especially rich kids, can be expected to go through a youthful prodigal child phase, the proverbial sowing of the wild oats, but no one should be celebrated for it, encouraged in it, or be able to build a seven figure brand name on it! People with the highest integrity and purest of intentions routinely go insane under the excessive intrusion of the paparazzi, so for the potential turn-around of this young wayward soul, let’s avert our eyes until she can get a grip. You may think this is something the media has forced upon the public but they are merely acting on behalf of our eyes and ears, mediating to us what we want to see and hear.

For these reasons, and numerous more if I cared to look into it further, I am calling for a boycott of all attention given to Paris. Like so many others in the spotlight, she is a spoiled Veruca Salt, throwing a tantrum in a chocolate factory that would be ineffectual if people would just ignore it. When flipping the channel, don’t linger on news and commercials featuring her or it may cause you to subconsciously buy something she has endorsed without realizing it. When surfing the web, don’t click on her name or it will reinforce her Google ranking and the ad revenue which can be generated in her name, further establishing her marketability. At the supermarket, steer the cart clear of the checkout magazines and immediately compost all your tabloid newspapers. Plants thrive on sewage.

The choice is ours. Let’s start making conscious distinctions between famous and infamous. Let’s stop celebrating ascension by filth and the plummet thereunto. For the sake of this young girl’s health and the health of civilization as we know it, please give this one a rest. There’s hope for everybody and an endless number of legitimate reasons to celebrate every life. In time, perhaps this young heiress will shine for something truly famous. Let’s give her that time.