Posted on 06/01/2005 9:27:48 AM PDT by UltraConservative
Paris Hilton is at it again. The 24-year-old hotel heiress is the feature attraction in Carl's Jr.'s new Spicy Burger ad campaign, aimed at the horny male TV-watching population. Scantily clad in a one-piece leather outfit plunging down to below her navel, Hilton struts into an empty warehouse, licks her finger, then suds up herself and a Bentley automobile, as a stripper-styled "I Love Paris" rendition slowly plays in the background. At the end of the spot, Hilton bites the burger and sucks her finger clean. The commercial closes with Hilton's tagline flashing across the screen: "That's Hot."
The spot is pure, soft-core pornography, beginning to end. The website for the commercial, spicyparis.com, touts the "too-hot-for-TV spot." And while Carl's Jr. CEO Andy Puzder defends the ad as "a beautiful model in a swimsuit washing a car," it is clearly designed to capitalize on Hilton's target audience -- porn watchers.
As I explain in my upcoming book, "Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future," the plain truth of the situation is that Paris Hilton would be a relative nobody today were she not incredibly rich and profligate with her favors. Hilton made perhaps the most infamous porn video outside of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. That hard-core work, starring then-boyfriend Rick Solomon, brought her international fame. At least nine other sex tapes are said to be floating around somewhere, including a lesbian sex tape with Playboy playmate Nicole Lenz. The sexually uninhibited Hilton became a target for Larry Flynt of Hustler fame, who released pictures of Hilton sharing some lesbian tongue at a nightclub. As Conan O'Brien observed, "Hustler magazine announced that it will feature photos of Paris Hilton making out with another woman, while the woman fondles Paris' breasts. So the search continues for a photo of Paris Hilton not having sex."
Because of her pornographic involvement, Hilton has grabbed an endorsement deal as the Guess? Jeans girl (the New York Observer reported that "her bad-girl image jibes with the clothing company's porn-lite ad campaigns"), endless tabloid headlines, and now, this deal with Carl's Jr. As Brad Haley, marketing chief for Carl's Jr., stated, "Paris was chosen to star in the ad because she is an intriguing cultural icon and the 'it girl' of the moment."
Here's the big question: How, as a society, did we allow Paris Hilton to become a cultural icon? Clearly, no one likes her very much. Liberals and conservatives alike agree that she is vacuous and silly. Media commentators all over the map label her "spoiled" and "stupid." Maureen Dowd, hardly a cultural right-winger, lumps Hilton together with "vacuous, slutty girls on TV sitcoms."
No, Hilton is today's "it girl" for one reason and one reason alone: Individual scorn, though that opinion may be shared by a vast majority, does not control the river of a culture. It is those who push the envelope who do. Over the past few decades, we have implemented a "live and let live" culture whereby abhorrence for immorality is seen as illegitimate if promoted through governmental means. Instead, we are supposed to let our culture be poisoned slowly -- and if we protest, we are told that as long as we turn off our own TV's, all will be well.
That's why it should come as no surprise that Hilton's spicy ad has ardent defenders, who proclaim that just because you don't like pornography doesn't mean that it can't make someone else very happy. One man's pornography is another man's means to happiness. And so Keith Olbermann of MSNBC ripped the ad's detractors: "I'm reminded tonight of H.L. Mencken's definition of Puritanism: the haunting fear someone somewhere may be happy. Is that at the bottom line here, I mean, that the people who have to protest crap like this ad -- and it's crap -- but are they afraid it will corrupt somebody, or are they afraid somebody will enjoy it?" Paul Begala labeled the offended "the sanctimonious Republican right." And Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times simultaneously condemned the commercial as "a new high (or low) in television crassness" and slammed the ad's opponents as members of the "manufactured outrage industry."
This is the new pattern: individual condemnation and societal acceptance. The moral among us have been forced into tolerance of immorality. Paris Hilton is a cultural icon because of it. As long as the moral majority is impotent, the lowest common denominator will continue to define us.
©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
I would say more than that. The kind that just did not care. What a waste.
***
She's an heiress, a trust fund baby. That's not a bad thing, but in her case, I get the feeling that she was never taught to be responsible.
Saw something not long ago in print about an interview done with her where the interviewer tried to ask her about current events. It could have been an act, but the woman came off as being completely and utterly clueless. I suppose there are some who think she doesn't need brains when she has money, but I wonder...what would she and others like her do if the money dries up? They have utterly no preparation for life in the real world.
Ronnie in the White HouseReagan was no cultural conservative. His FCC appointees believed in the power of the channel changer and the on-off switch. If there was one agency the moral majorettes would love to have controlled, that was it...and he gave it to their opposites.
Look at the popular culture in 1989 compared to 1981, and look at his popularity among its adherents at the end of his term. Or even in 1984...the Dims were giving birth to porcupines (breech presentation) over his share of the under-30 vote.
-Eric
Very, very, very, very wealthy ones! As is Monica, Paris, Madonna, Jane F., Pamela whatever......sex sells and our non-judgemental audience revels in it. Trash is trash - no matter how it rationalizes itself and its attitudes.
LOL
LOL, I loved that episode!I can pretty much guarantee the author of this article did not. At least not publically.
The cultural collectivists hate South Park. It's also the libertarian-right's most effective voice among the generation that is otherwise being soaked in PC-left. For many of the same reasons.
-Eric
Calendars showing more skin were found in garages all over America in the 1950's, and were usually called "cheesecake", not porn.
The problem here, is not the skin, but the fact that she was umm ... "dancing" with the car. (Yea, that is what she was doing, "dancing".)
What kind? A capitalist one. She's worked what she has hard and has made a mint from it, to add to her inherited wealth.
People spell it a different way?
Drug laws are pure morality regulation, but laws against murder and theft are the purview of the government because they are protecting personal rights and property rights (the only regulation the govt should be involved in, IMO).
I often see it spelled "ny." And so few people realize that nigh has a comparative and a superlative.
Glad they set their goals high ... and achieved them. "You've come a long way, baby".
Yes, they can be justified that way as well. But there is certainly a heavily moral component to murder laws -- otherwise, killing someone is self-defense would be difficult to justify. And a rights theory, as Locke wrote, is derived from Biblical injunction. Besides, there are plenty of other laws based on morality: laws barring statutory rape, for example.
Thank you for pointing that out. It's usually missed in these converations.
" The moral among us have been forced into tolerance of immorality"
Bingo.
Once madison Avenue realized sex sells, the whole damn dam opened up.
Yeah, but those are calendars, this is a TV and print ad.
Probably because nighest and nigher sound a little odd.
As Robert Bork has written, everyone agrees with capitalism -- we just disagree on what kind of products should be allowed in the marketplace. Pornography should not be allowed in the marketplace. That doesn't mean we should be socialists with regard to other products.
Actually it's irregular, like good-better-best.
It's nigh-near-next.
He lost me here.
You mean you want no regulation of societal mores like laws against theft, rape, violence, slavery, public drunkeness, age of consent, etc.?
Or do you want the government only regulating the morals you like, and ignoring the ones you want to be free to violate?
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