Undressing Paris Hilton

It’s been a busy week. Russia invaded Georgia, the Olympic Games opened with unrivalled pomp in imperial Beijing and the reigning queen of bad-taste, Paris Hilton, announced her candidacy for the Presidency of the United States to an online audience of six and a half million viewers.

Of these three global events, it’s the Paris Hilton video on FunnyOrDie, “Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad”, that has created the most online buzz -- amassing a remarkable six and half million views in just six days. Indeed, this video is holding its own against the Chinese Olympics in the online competition for global eyeballs. Whatever the world’s athletes accomplish over the next couple of weeks in Beijing’s National Stadium, Paris Hilton has already won the gold medal for digital narcissism -- scaling Olympian heights in her shameless self-promotion.

So what lies behind this video? The Republican candidate, John McCain, released a controversial and, some Democrats say, racist television advertisement which visually associated the blonde Hilton with the supposed “celebrity” Barack Obama. And so Paris Hilton struck back with a satirical video remix of the original McCain advertisement. Appearing in a one-piece leopard skin swimsuit and announcing her own mock candidacy for president, Hilton satirized McCain as “super old” “wrinkledly white guy” who has been around since “dancing was a sin” and “beer was served in a bucket.”

Hilton presented herself as a classic third party candidate – neither "old" like McCain or "for change" like Obama. “I’m just hot,” she announced, before explaining that “I’m like totally ready to lead” and then, blowing a suggestive kiss at the camera, promising she’d see us all later this year at the White House.

Six and half million views later, the online debate about American politics has switched from Republicans and Democrats to the Paris Hilton party. Barack Obama and John McCain might be busy picking their vice-presidential candidates, but last week Hilton made both Obama and McCain appear distinctly vice-presidential. Indeed, if the election was held this week and Hilton was on the ballot, my guess is that the 27-year old heiress of the Hilton hotel dynasty would win more votes amongst her peers than the “wrinkedly white dude”.

So what does the viral success of the Hilton video tell us about the way in which the Internet is changing American politics? On the one hand, it shows the remarkable ability of the Internet to reshape the political debate. The Hilton video successfully satirized the original McCain commercial, thereby potentially changing the whole chemistry of the race. The San Francisco Chronicle described this as the “Paris Hilton factor” and argued that had John Kerry’s responded so aggressively to George W. Bush’s “Swift Boat” attack advertisements, he might have even won the 2004 election.

Only, of course, Paris Hilton wasn’t working in concert with the Democrats. Her video was for Paris on the Hilton channel, not for Barack on the Obama channel. In this one minute and fifty second spoof video, Hilton successfully reheated her own celebrity brand. The one-time amateur porn actress really is hot now -- certainly hotter than the ever-so-slightly tepid Obama, who could certainly borrow a bit of her sizzle between now and November.

And that’s the scary thing about the Internet’s radically democratizing impact on politics. In today’s unmediated online world – Paris Hilton, Britney Spears or any other under-dressed online celebrity -- can impose their brands and ideologies into politics. The traditional media gatekeepers aren’t running the political show anymore. The Internet free-for-all is transforming politics into show-business, citizens into short-form video consumers, politicians into celebrities and celebrities into politicians.

How long will it be, I wonder, before a half-naked Paris Hilton really does announce her Presidential candidacy via an Internet video? That's the real Paris Hilton factor. That's when the video on FunnyOrDie will no longer seem very amusing.

Comments

[Seth Finkelstein]

Two words: "Ronald Reagan" :-)

Heck, "Fred Thompson".

[Vince Williams]

Paris, would-be Marilyn of the millenial generation-- is a YouTube moon goddess.

Her video shows the skillful abuse of technology to lull youthful brains into a suggestible hypnotic state-- one where they revert to the ancient, irrational, unconscious behavior of their ancestors.

This regression alters the cognitive processing of their brains. In such a vulnerable state they accept the seductive offerings of the luminescent blonde and lose touch with objective reality.

Thus these followers of the unholy streetwalker of the internet in their legions are indulging in the rites of a primitive religion embedded in the mitochondrial DNA of their very cells.

Their only hope of reclaiming personhood and their individuality is a biochemical exorcism. The formula is available for download at a low, low price. If you'd like to know more, please contact me.;-)

[tamiluxus]

Makes me think of 'Ciccolina' (Ilona Staller) a porn star who was elected in to italian parliament in 1979 - without the help of the internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilona_Staller

[Philip Howells]

Well today many young people (including myself) feel that due to the current administration's notoriety in feeding false statements and manipulating what many considered to be the truth that lead this country astray and doing so using many of the major media outlets to make it happen I'm not too surprised by the popularity of the Hilton video. I would think Andrew (though I may be wrong) that you underestimate America's desperate search for pure candidates and pure unbiased news in this election that people are willing to jump the fence towards the Paris Party out of desperation.

Barrack Obama voted to grant immunity to the telecommunications companies who worked with the NSA to tap most of America's phone lines. Something many Americans considered a breach in civil liberties and a blow towards the people who supported the change candidate in hopes of things like this would not repeat themselves. I should know by now that all politicians are not genuine, truthful, honest down-to-Earth folks, but American's want near perfection in their leaders (a truly impossible notion in my opinion).

Very few people want to vote for McCain, but now that others are seeing dents in the Obama armor people are wondering if he'll be America's supposed savior from the previous eight years. I looked at the Paris video as pure satire (but she'd need a writer to be as clever as she was in that video), but I can see how people would want to gravitate towards someone like her. Paris isn't exactly what American's want or need right now, but we feel we deserve something similar, minus celebrity glamor combined with nice physical features. She also used the internet: a place where all the people too cynical to believe in the news on paper and/or television would give her, her undivided attention.

[andrew]

Great post, Philip. Thanks. I'm a bit concerned with the idea of purity in politics. Such a longing always ends in tears. Look at Edwards and even Bill Clinton. Americans expect much too much of their politicians. As Madison reminded us, nobody is an angel..

[Vince Williams]

I should apologize for my previous comment, reading it now it seems stupid. Feel free to delete it.

It is difficult to watch Obama go through the contortions of massaging his message to suit poll results, especially for those of us who were receptive to his promise of real change, even if we took it with the requisite grain of salt.

How depressing too, when he compromises the values that we thought he upheld on our behalf, especially since so many of them have been under relentless assault by the Bush administration. It was shocking when he voted for the FISA intelligence surveillance legislation.

I don't feel as optimistic about his candidacy as I did two months ago, but I can't see voting for
Nader/Gonzalez, either.

Michael Moore has an article in the latest Rolling Stone magazine issue, called How the Democrats Can Blow It... In Six Easy Steps. It's in the National Affairs section, where he lays out "a blueprint for losing the most winnable presidential election in American history".

To wit:

1. Keep saying nice things about McCain.

2. Pick a running mate who is a conservative white guy or a general or a Republican.

3. Keep writing speeches for Obama that make him sound like a hawk.

4. Forget that this was a historic year for women.

5. Show up to a gunfight with a peashooter.

6. Denounce Michael Moore.

I was impressed by Philip's thoughtful post. However, when he said, "...but we feel we deserve something similar, minus celebrity glamor combined with nice physical features", I thought: but when you subtract those qualities from something similar, there's nothing left.

Of course the video was intended as satire, but how many people who could actually vote for a Paris Hilton would give her more than a few minutes of their undivided attention, unless she were half-naked?

[sezer]

Paris hilton Photography - Pictures - Picture Gallery - - Movies - Films - Filmography - Biography - Discography - Lyrics

http://philton.blogcu.com