We Won't Always Have Paris-May 16, 2005

Paris Hilton.

See, for some reason, just reading the words “Paris Hilton” makes me laugh, and since this column is supposed to be funny, I put that out there assuming I’m not the only one who cracks up thinking about this dingbat. Others of you, I’m sure, will have a different reaction to those same words. You don’t have to be the Church Lady to think Paris isn’t that special. She’s a wreck, really. Even those who’ve been fooled into thinking a curveless ferret face like Paris is a sex goddess would have to admit that. There’s a reason that your fantasies of her end with a tetanus shot, and that’s just not normal.

What’s sad about Paris’s short trip through our collective consciousness is that generations of good breeding, fancy education and billions of dollars have, sadly, failed to produce a decent human being. As a chimpanzee, she’d be doing fine, but not as a person. The Hilton family, strangely, seem like good old fashioned preppy blue bloods with a sense of civic duty and Brooks Brothers-style. Yet they have kids Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne would ground. What’s happened in our society where everyone knows about the immoral train wreck lives of the children of the rich? Didn’t they used to be able to cover up family embarrassments like this? If Joe Kennedy had had a daughter like Paris, she’d have been locked up in an Irish nunnery after that first tape came out.

Not only is Paris an unfortunate stereotype of the result of bad Hollywood parenting, she’s also one of the stars of a movie that came out last week called “House of Wax.” I haven’t seen it, but I’ll give you the premise: a group of sexy young adults wander into an abandoned, rural town where two brothers kill anyone they meet and dip them in Wax to decorate their House. Some die, and some don’t. You get the idea.

Although all of the posters for this movie include a picture of Paris Hilton’s face covered in wax in a ghostly green light (reminiscent of a certain video you might have heard about), there are some that have what I think will be a very effective marketing slogan on them: SEE PARIS DIE! I predict this will sell a lot of tickets to an otherwise pointless and stupid piece of work. (True, I haven’t seen it. It could be another “Citizen Kane” for all I know, but I’ll let you risk your $9.50 to find out.)

Some might think that the drawing power of Paris’s on-screen death has to do with envy. She’s young, rich, allegedly good-looking and can do whatever she wants. All true, but there must be something else. Brad Pitt is all those things, but you won’t get a round of applause in a movie preview by announcing that he’s going to get dipped in wax in his next picture. She’s different. We want her dead so people can stop talking and thinking about her. Of course, when I say “dead,” I don’t mean gone on to her Eternal reward (or whatever.) I mean dead in the Hollywood sense, a fate worse than merely expiring in the flesh. Hollywood dead means no one cares if you lose your cell phone and no one is willing to pay to watch you milk a cow. It means that if you have trouble controlling your various bodily functions, the only one looking at the film is a radiologist, not a worldwide network of teenage boys stealing their dad’s credit card to get a peek on the Internet.

Let me be the first to announce that Paris’s amazingly uninteresting career at the top of the celebrity pig pile has already started in the direction of a Zsa-Zsa Gabor kind of future. Actually, I’m sure I’m not the first to say that, because I don’t care anywhere near enough to check in on her more than once per icky scandal. Of course, even if she drops out of the limelight, she’s got enough money to keep herself in trucker’s hats and thongs until way past anyone cares to know about it. She’ll move from “hot” to “out” to “creepy old lady” in a lot less time than you’d expect. And if you think that’s bad, imagine how Nicole Richie will feel. She’s what Ringo was to the Beatles, except she’s not funny, can’t play the drums, nobody likes her, and instead of being the least important member of the world’s greatest rock band, she’s the most annoying sidekick of the world’s trampiest heiress.

So now that I’ve predicted the slow and painful death of Paris Hilton’s celebrity (except for the ironic, pitiful part of it), I’m willing to back up my words with actions. From now on, don’t talk about Paris Hilton. If you even start to think about her, stop yourself and picture instead a cartoon cow dancing to “Turkey in the Straw.” At least you’ll get a chuckle out of that. Ok, so starting now, never talk about Paris Hilton again. Dagnabit, I said “Paris Hilton” after starting the moratorium. Let’s start again. Never talk about Paris Hilton again…starting…NOW!

I’m holding you to it!