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I am not a Paris Hilton hater. In fact, I seem to be in the minority in that I’m completely indifferent. Unlike the travails and humiliations of Lindsay Lohan, by which I am shamefully transfixed, the bad behavior of Ms. Hilton holds little interest to me. So maybe she’s the most wicked bitch to roam the earth. So maybe she’s a harmless airhead. So what. Her punishment was probably harsher than it might have been for a non-celebrity, but her attempt to manipulate the law proved distasteful in the eyes of just about everybody. Then again, never did I think I would side with Paris against Sarah Silverman, who joked at Paris’ expense at the MTV Movie Awards, but here I am. (For all her , Silverman reminds me more of my middle school bullies than Hilton.)
So overall, I don’t know what to do with Paris Hilton. And most days, I don’t care.
But, of course, I was compelled to watch her interview with Larry King—I’m not made of stone, people. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, I did not come away from the program with any more knowledge or feelings than I did going in. Paris stuck to a very strict script in which she maintained that she is a businesswoman for whom family comes first and for whom jail was a “traumatic experience.” Paris’ repetition of the word “trauma” and its derivations quickly became tedious, and if she did in fact learn anything from serving jail time, you would never know from her stiff answers. Who wrote this script for her anyway? Her lawyer, who supposedly told her she could drive with a suspended license? Throw us a bone and at least pretend you are being candid! I will admit I was disappointed to hear that the trait she wants to change about herself is her tendency to speak in a higher register when she is nervous. Maybe what she means is that she needs to assert herself, and use her voice as a way to self-possession, but are we to believe Paris Hilton is a doormat?
The blame really lies at the feet of “icon” Larry King. Sorry, Larry, but you dropped the ball here, and I’m not the only one to notice this. King asked Paris the same questions—What have you learned? Do you feel you were made an example of?—over and over, not gracefully, so as to draw her out, but almost as though he hadn’t been listening. His inarticulateness was maddening: rather than tell her, straight out, “You perform for the camera”, he drilled her about “dancing for the camera,” in which Paris’ confused reaction mirrored my own. King clumsily moved between soft-ball questions and ones like, “What’s your favorite Bible passage?” (King clearly saw this question as a trap, which it wasn’t.) Go on and search “Paris Hilton inaccuracies” on Youtube—the interview was riddled with potential and likely inaccuracies, and King declined to pursue any of these paths. My biggest question remains in what capacity does she operate as a businesswoman anyway? We all tuned in because we were curious, but his inability to elicit any genuine reactions from the former jailbird kept this interview from being really juicy, really GOOD TV.
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