Jousting Blonds: more defense of hot chicks

No sooner had I laid the foundations for my argument for solidarity with the hot young panty-flashers of the day, did I find this article that irritatingly posits everybody's favorite dead princess in opposition to Paris the Heiress. Now some of the stuff this article says, I can agree with (I'll get there shortly, don't worry), but a lot of it is just insane. I, for one, am sick of the comparison. They're both blond. They're both wealthy. They're both media-hounded celebrities. But Paris is the slut while Diana at least looked lady-like out the outside. And if I had my choice about with whom I'd rather have sex, I'd pick Paris every day of the week and 6 or 8 times on Tuesday (that's for you, H!). That shy, pouting-through-the-eyelashes thing just does nothing for me, Di. Sorry, Lady. Not that I hold any grudges against Diana, it's just that she's just another human-- albeit, one who was pretty good at manipulating the media such that she's been virtually canonized posthumously, but an ordinary human, nonetheless.

In any case, Chaudhry spends lot of time arguing that the the primary difference between Diana and today's crop of female celebrity flesh is that Diana played up her victimhood in her image (well beyond those pesky confines of reality) while P, B and L (like the sandwich, but thus far, none of us have been so lucky!) attempt to suppress theirs (which is sometimes quite real, indeed) in favor of presenting an image of independence and party-girlhood. Bullshit, I say! Here's a quotation from Chaudhry:
"In a June 17 column, Naomi Wolf complained about a culture that "seems increasingly obsessed with showcasing images of glamorous young women who are falling apart," citing the spectacle of Britney Spears's meltdown, Paris Hilton's arrest and Lindsay Lohan's various stints in rehab. The more women advance in the real world, Wolf argues, the more "the broken, out-of-control ingenue--who clearly can't manage without lots of help--is reassuring. And, I'd say, seductive." In other words, Paris may be no Marilyn or Diana, but she serves exactly the same purpose: to assure us of feminine vulnerability.

It would be a convincing argument, except these young women present themselves as neither broken nor fragile.Where Diana made much of her indifferent mother, Lindsay plays down her far more dysfunctional family life, which includes an ex-convict dad. Like Paris, these young women position themselves as overindulged princesses rather than scarred little waifs. Peddling emotional pain is just not their thing."
And, yes, perhaps they do covet that image of "overindulged princess," but what about that which appears to be a very real drug addiction (Please note: application of the spa version of rehab is NOT helpful) in the case of Lindsay Lohan in particular is so well-concealed that one might want to call this girl a self-sufficient new model of femininity? So Chaudhry concedes that Diana was probably far less "tragic" (a.k.a, fucked up) than the princess might have had us believe, but she never quite gets around to conceding that Lindsay is probably every bit as fucked up as she would have us believe. I really don't see a hell of a lot of effort, on the part of these girls, to hide much. (On a side note, I did read Naomi Wolf's article back in June. She, too, offers some interesting, but far from bullet-proof insights into this issue.) But, basically, as much as I'd love for the new iconic female image to be one that freely flouts social mores and unapologetically refuses to conform to anyone's notions of feminine vulnerability, I don't think our flashy girls are really as renegade and stolid as Chaudhry wants so badly to give them credit for being.

Chaudhry does, however, get quite a lot right in this article--her willingness to grant the fact that the image of the saintly Diana and the image of the debauched Paris are equally concocted figments of the public imagination, for example. As I intimated in my previous post, we don't have access in any real way to any of these women and therefore our interpretations of the images are ultimately pretty meaningless, based on so much hot air as they are. The idea that Diana played her audience, manipulating us with a contrived vulnerability and shyness-- well, I like the idea, of course, because it grants the woman a whole new sense of agency. But, in reality, I have no idea which of those iterations of the princess would be most accurate-- probably neither! And I'm nauseated by the "Candle in the Wind" Diana because she is created in the outdated image of what Chaudhry called "tragic love goddesses." Yawn. I'd rather watch a reckless and unapologetic party girl any day. At least she owns her life, even if she's not too great at taking responsibility for it (yet?).

Chaudhry goes on to make one other point that I think is dead on. Here's another excerpted paragraph:
There is, however, a price to pay for their transgressions. "I find of particular interest the amount of hatred people have, especially male commentators, for Paris Hilton," says Karen Hollinger, author of The Actress: Hollywood Acting and the Female Star. "She isn't portrayed as looking for love--and finding or not finding it--but as beautiful and rather wild. On the other hand, Diana fit so well into the model of the beautiful woman searching and suffering for love that men were falling all over themselves to celebrate this 'candle in the wind.'"
Truer words regarding the Hilton/Princess deathmatch may never have been spoken. Among my female friends, sure, there are a handful who write poor Paris off as a "dumb blond slut" (an image that is such a transparent decoy for the purposes of attracting media-generated target-practice that I'm not quite sure why anyone actually buys it), but a number of us either don't care one way or other about her, or nurse little crushes on her. After all, that leather-onesy-clad burger commercial seems to have had an effect on many a female libido. From my male friends, however, I've never heard such vitriol regarding a woman who is scarcely more than an abstract concept in any of our lives. I should say, I do have one male friend who owns his crush on Ms. Hilton, but I can't imagine this particular friend EVER feeling threatened by bold-faced female pleasure-seeking. So, what gives, guys? Why do you hate her so? What is it about the particular zeitgeist into which this woman has tapped that makes you so uncomfortable? I don't mean these questions accusatorily, but rather, because I'm actually curious.

(There is one more forthcoming post on this topic and then I'll be be done with my flagellations of this dead horse for a while. Promise.)