Naomi Wolf wrote an
op-ed for the Washington Post yesterday, musing as to why we as a culture and particularly today's strong accomplished women are so fascinated with idiot ingenues who fall apart like Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and of course Paris Hilton. It's an interesting question and one that I would expect Wolf, who I used to idolize and still mostly admire, to have an insightful perspective on.
Wolf first wonders if perhaps the culture as a whole needs reminders of female vulnerability because of fear that if we're not weak, we won't choose to be the nurturing supportive backbone of both families and civilization. Then she decides that instead, women are so strong and accomplished today, so used to keeping it all together and succeeding in spite of so many balls in the air at once, that we are engaging in vicarious fantasy of what it would be like to let ourselves fall apart completely and have someone else pick up the pieces. Both premises are, in my view, completely wrong.
People, and women in particular, are fascinated with the failings of celebrities like these because we feel like they live the lives of ultimate privilege that we all dream about living, but they didn't do anything meritorious to deserve it. These starlets have plastic surgery, the best in personal trainers and stylists, hairstylists, and whatever other tricks of the trade that image creators can buy, and yet they are idolized for being beautiful and glamorous. They aren't particularly talented or smart. In fact in Paris' case, she's known for being clueless and spoiled, so much so that she's gotten 4 seasons of a bad reality show out of her mishaps. Britney was a young hot-bodied singer with a weak voice and an unintentionally hilarious cameo in Fahrenheit 9/11 based on her stupid assurance that
"[she really thinks] we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens." And Lindsay's own intellectual inadequacies came to light after she started emailing the
press from her Blackberry about Robert Altman's death without having someone with a 6th grade or higher education proofread it first.
And yet, they are impossibly thin and beautiful (and yet interestingly still have breasts) and lusted after and idealized and drive Mercedes McLarens and live in mansions and wear $20,000 evening gowns once to parties the rest of us will never get into. Basically, these girls live carefree money-laden lifestyles the rest of us could only dream about, and we hate them and wish for them to fail because we don't think they've done anything to deserve it.
In contrast, so many women are killing themselves to get ahead in their careers, or to juggle career and family, or to raise a family by themselves. Most of us don't have the time or money for stylists, personal trainers, and plastic surgeons to make it easy for us to be impossibly thin (with breasts!) and beautiful, and we certainly don't have the time to spend 6 nights a week out partying til dawn in stylish ensembles that cost more than a Honda. Most of us are letting it slide somewhere, be it time with the kids, getting the bills paid on time, working out and eating healthy, or making time to meet new people and date.
We want them to fail because we want to believe that hard work and doing everything right will bring happiness in the end. And correspondingly we don't want to be taunted with those who do everything wrong and yet have it so perpetually easy. If we get a DUI, and then get caught twice driving with a suspended license, not only are we going to jail, but it will probably have real repurcussions in our ability to hold down a job. We wouldn't be able to get out of jail after 2 days because we complained we were afraid the guards might take a picture of us peeing and sell it to a tabloid. And if we nearly lost a job or a child custody due to an alcoholism or drug addiction issue, and we skipped out on rehab or repeatedly relapsed, you can bet we'd pay a much higher price for it than Britney or Lindsay did.
I don't think it's a particularly female point of view, although we are less likely to be blinded by the allure of good looks than men are. I recently had a man tell me that I should stop going to websites that show stars before they had their plastic surgery, presumably because it was harshing his mellow to hear that so-and-so's aren't actually real and spectacular. Same man also admits to being willing to bed Paris Hilton, though I doubt he would be so eager if his brain could absorb the knowledge that she
reportedly has herpes. (Isn't that the ultimate neutralizing agent for the jealous? To say that so-and-so lust object has herpes, and therefore is rendered instantly unfuckable?)
We are obsessed with the failings of these women and others like them, because we need to see them lose the things we think they do not deserve. We need to believe that we are living right and working hard because it will get us ahead, because it will bring us what we deserve for being good girls, and because accepting the notion that life isn't fair and that sometimes all the hard work in the world doesn't matter would upend our entire reasons for living the way we do. And then what would be the point?
I fully admit to being one of these people. When Paris was heading off to jail in that squad car, crying, I was having a somewhat difficult time in my work life and that picture was like a hit of crack for me. The little voice inside said "See? The dumb spoiled brat is going to jail, whereas you Sara are working your ass off at a job many would kill to get, earning a salary most would kill to have, and who cares that you work 60 hours a week and aren't married and don't even have a boyfriend, and can't seem to find time or motivation to eat well and exercise so you're not a size 2. You are doing it the right way, she is doing it the wrong way, and just as she is punished you will eventually be rewarded." It worked, I got back on the horse, and Paris went back to jail.
It's ugly, but there it is. I suspect most who read the gossip sites every day and secretly cackle over the latest foibles of the overprivileged would admit to the same.
