One more thing about Paris and Lindsey

Yes, I know that if you hear/read/see another thing about Paris/Lindsey you will __(insert heinous act of rage)__

I've been trying to avoid the entire debacle myself. Really, I don't care, and I'm not just saying that because I'm ashamed that I do. I really don't.

But my parents left the TV on tonight on CNN news, and I couldn't help overhearing as I was brushing my teeth that for the Showbiz Tonight segment there would be a panel of special guests to discuss "The Release of the Party Girls". Sounds like a Girls Gone Wild production to me, but considering the way that CNN (particularly cnn.com) handled the VT school shooting tragedy earlier this year, I'm hardly surprised by their tackiness.

So out of morbid curiosity I watched the segment. The panel was made up of four men, including the host, and one woman-a psychologist. And they were discussing how Paris and Lindsey were (not) going to change their ways/image after their respective pending releases from jail and rehab.

Of course for Paris, the sex tape and the racial slurs incident came up. (I tried to find the video of the racial slurs on youtube but it's not worth sitting through the other 4 minutes and 45 seconds of her terrible dancing at a club)

There is no excuse for anyone to use racial slurs. But it became very apparent to me as I watched four older men tear apart these young women for their actions was the threat that Paris and Lindsey pose to the societal standard of femininity. On the outside they fit exactly what society dictates that young girls look like. But they drink, they use drugs, they party like frat boys (just replace the kegs with bottles of grey goose), they have sex, they go through partners like they go through outfits.

To put this in perspective, Hugh Hefner is a role model to many; Colin Farrell is a "sex god" and a "bad boy.". Lindsey and Paris are "party girls." "Bad boy" is a way of describing a desirable male who participates in all the activities above. The "party girl" moniker infers a service provided. Party girls to me sounds like hired entertainment at a bachelor party.

"Party girl" has become a phenomena terrifying parents of daughters everywhere, and stereotyping college girls everywhere for that matter. "Party girls" (sometimes they are self-described as such) are groups of girls who model themselves after the side of Paris and Lindsey that they see. They pride themselves on getting drunk, going out and 'having a good time with the girls', with the ultimate goal of getting laid, or at least not paying for a single drink all night. My exposure to party girls was an episode of The Tyra Banks Show. A group of four girls, who easily could have been myself and my female roommates at school, shared their funny drunken stories and allowed the cameras to follow them on a night out. Back in the studio, Tyra proceded to yell in their faces "YOU ARE GOING TO GET RAPED!" until they each broke down and cried and woved to change their ways.

This sickens me. That kind of attitude to these so called party girls perpetuates rape culture. And what will we do when (it already happens every single night somewhere in this country) party girl does get raped after a night of partying? We will tell her, you shouldn't have had so much to drink. You shouldn't have been out so late. You shouldn't have worn that. We will blame the victim.

Back to Paris and jail. Last fall I did a very interesting research project for one of my classes about 1950's media (mostly Hollywood film and pulp magazine) depictions of women in jail. I learned a lot about the social perceptions of female inmates. The invention of women's prisons came from overcrowding by increased arrests of female prostitutes. The change in emphasis from punishment to rehabilitation in the prison system created many women's prisons--mostly in the form of "reform schools." Thus women go to prison because they have in some way fallen from feminine grace. As in the case of arrested prostitutes, they lack feminine piety and purity. They are masculinized because of their willingness to engage in sex with numerous partners. The other stereotype of the female inmate is the "prison butch", a female who has rejected femininity, often depicted as a vulture who preys on younger, innocent girls jailed for petty crime. Nowadays we also have the female drug addict, who is stripped of her sexuality by society because of the way we see her dependence on the drug and the ways in that drug use often ravages the body so that there's nothing left for a lover. Basically, whatever it is, the popular conceptions of the female inmate denies her of her femininity. It seems the very harshness of the prison walls masculinizes her.

I'm talking about this because Paris doesn't quite fit any of these. She is absolutely the one that is not like the others in (the common vision of) a female prison. First of all she is white. Second of all she is extremely wealthy. She is also the epitome of the popular culture's feminine ideal. She is dimwitted, thin, obsessed with her looks, likes small furry things, etc. And she is sent to this place where femininity can not exist in our popular notions. And the media cannot wrap their minds around this. Paris Hilton in a jail cell is the ultimate gender paradox. That is why an entire nation is enraptured by the question, "How is Paris doing in jail?" The question that they are really fearful of, is how can such ideal femininity survive, that is what the media is worried about. Not her health.