This:
Yes, Paris Hilton was there. And yes, Lovefoxx dedicated "Meeting Paris Hilton" to her. Hilton stood on a riser next to the stage and danced through most of CSS' set, which included their cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead".
I repeat: Paris Hilton danced to CSS covering L7. You could not possibly invent a more flabbergasting third-wave feminist mindfuck. Oh wait-- apparently Courtney Love was there, too.
Plus
this:
Paris Hilton reportedly has turned to the one man she feels can keep her from serving a 45-day prison sentence: The Governator.
The Simple Life star and hotel heiress -- who was sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating her probation on a September 2006 drunken driving misdemeanor on Friday -- posted a message on her MySpace.com page on Monday that urges fans to petition California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to ask that she be pardoned.
Equals
this plus
this plus what's in the "About" box at the top-right corner of this page here. It's the moment when Paris officially becomes the Courtney Love of the 00s, which says something about the 00s, but anyway it was nice of Court to be there to pass the baton.
Paris before seemed to be actively working to draw attention to her, so that even events that would generally be considered to have originated from someone besides Paris, like the sex tape leak, were assumed to have been engineered by her in some way. But now she's hit escape velocity, overcome the static friction of fame, and so things are now drawn to her, explicitly without her having anything to do with it, and she's now able to respond to things rather than creating them in the first place, which is the more interesting place of meaning-making as I see it. Interestingly, this is because she actively courted fame; Courtney, because she was more ambivalent about it (or, rather, wanted fame on
her terms, since she distrusted her own ability to manage her fame, whereas Paris has always seemed happy to take fame as it comes), attracted independent actors much more quickly than Paris did, perhaps because her reluctance to fully embrace the spotlight indicated that she had something to hide. Paris didn't seem to hide anything.[1]
But now she's overcome that handicap, because she's entered into an arena where your participation matters little, if at all: politics! In terms of reality, she should clearly go to jail (get a driver, girl!), but in terms of, you know, art, she's getting into the spirit of the game well after a slow start, with the appeal to Arnold and all. Of course, Arnold will say no, but it's interesting that it's at least plausible, and that context has been created by Arnold himself, who was certainly in at least the same league, spoiled-celebrity-wise (his salvation coming at the hands of politics--you see?), as Paris, and so can be assumed to harbor some sort of sympathy. There's the movie paradigm of "well now she's gone and made trouble for us, how are we gonna handle this, boss?" but also the real-world context of the performance of fame and the community of celebrities that Paris has recognized Arnold straddles the line between it and politics; he's the bridge from parties to jail, and she's trying to get him to lift the drawbridge. It's a brilliant move, even, or especially, if it doesn't work, because it's saying something about the governor that we've mostly forgotten.
All in all, I think it means we have to think about Paris differently now; we can argue about whether her "handlers" (who?) are doing it or she is, but let's say Paris and whether we mean the brand or the woman, it's now a fully self-possessed force.
Oh, and the first thing is great because it contradicts my point in the CSS post. By staying true to the spirit of the original, insofar as "Meeting Paris Hilton" was true to the spirit of Paris rather than mocking her or appropriating her, ends up making
more meaning because it's attracted the presence of the original, and the original next to the cover is almost always an interesting thing. It conveys a blessing--which implies a superiority--but also shows the differences, and the proximity allows ideas to richochet off each other in a much more heated way than they could otherwise, and when you add Courtney, well, that's just about critical mass. Point taken.
[1] Even if, the more you consider her, the less sure you are about her.
Labels: convergence, courtney love, css, paris, politics
- Twoheadedboy
makes some great points about the Arcade Fire and their public reception:
And what of the Arcade Fire's purported sincerity? Their heart-on-sleeve
emotionalism? Should we be touched, moved? When every song recruits a gargantan church organ to swell Win Butler's high school poetry to apocalyptic proportions
(“mirror, mirror / on the wall / show me where the / bombs will fall”)? I say,
stop touching me.
Also, at the end (and more importantly): "taking the Arcade Fire to task for aestheticizing politics." This is really smart.
I'm still trying to figure out why musicians' clumsy attempts at political gestures bug me so much, beyond, you know, "they're stupid." I hadn't really considered this one, though, and I think it's getting close to the heart of the matter, although I would phrase it more like "imposing lame indie aesthetics on politics, which already has its own aesthetics." The lyrics quoted above are a 1:1 equivalency of John Ashcroft
singing "Let The Eagle Soar." Just because you're singing something over a piano part doesn't mean it's a good song, and just because you say something about bombs doesn't make it a meaningful political statement, and when people think otherwise, that just indicates that they don't really know what they're talking about when it comes to songs or politics. Oh sure, sure; everyone's entitled to their opinion, and god forbid we "supress dissent" by telling someone they're being shallow, but if you think Ashcroft's song is lame, well. Aesthetics matter.
- As
suspected, the
House episode this week was practically a religious experience. I think I might be mentioning it again in the near future, so I won't say too much now, but seriously, episode of the year or something.
- As Frank
pointed out and Dave
responded to, there's been surprisingly little chatter in pop-nerd circles about Britney shaving her head, aside from the requisite "OMG she's bald" reactions. There's been a quote going around attributed to Courtney Love that I can't find an original source for (it might be on a google-proofed page like a message board), but it certainly
sounds like her:
she?s insane! I love it! I?m sad about what she?s ingesting, and the bad man who got her started on that shit.But she?s made herself a true outsider under the influence or not- which in itself is not a crime, she?s expressed what she?s feeling inside on the outside an dyes its the result of a psychotic break due to uh?ingestion of a very very very evil substance. and i know what I know because I know, the people who know- she cried for a long tome before she did it and her bodyguards were all that was with herhow the ultimate insider the person whose almost directly responsible for ruining guitar rock ended up shaving her head is an ultimate irony and the fact that she shaved her head hell if i did it no one would blink butt hats cos I?ve always been an outsider even when I?m an insider- but ths is breaking news due to that fact that this was the lolita fuck up fantasy doll jonbenet nightmare- i remember the first time i saw a little thing on her in spin I seriously very seriously thought it was a parody like an snl skit and when it became real I worried and it affected everyone, in my world in the world of rock n roll and this may as well be death in some ways- she wasn?t sober when she did it - i wish she had been because then id be able to really kind of get behind it and just say- fuck yeah express yourself- do it= you don?t feel pretty on ths inside anymore show it man, but it s happened and its legendary, this is going to be legendary.Is she going to join mercury rev? Start hanging at space land?i doubts he even understands that world but no decent punk at heart can begrudge the once totally self an dmommy sexualised ?virgin? for shaving g her dammed head, i love it and I?m sad for her at he same time.I?m sure she?s clueless to how brilliant this was, how in some ways anarchic an feminist it was- but she still needs to go back to rehab.That my two cents.
I like this, but I would. Maybe another productive avenue to go down would be comparing it with the "makeover" episode on
America's Next Top Model. It's at, what, the seventh time around now? Eighth? And every "cycle" (ugh, sorry) there's the makeover episode, and every makeover episode, they chop off a bunch of the girls' hair. And there's always lots of crying. It doesn't make sense--the contestants have clearly watched the show before, they know this is coming, and yet, every time, "OMG I can't believe they cut off my hair!" Really? Well, yeah. It's notable in comparison to another ANTM pattern: the nude shoot. Every season, usually after the makeover episode, there's a shoot where the girls have to be either nude, near-nude, or looking as if they are nude, and for the first few seasons, this would always knock at least one contestant out, because they would refuse on moral grounds to be nude and my body is a temple etc. etc. OH MY GOD GIRL YOU'RE TRYING TO BE A MODEL TAKE YOUR DAMN CLOTHES OFF ALREADY.
Um. Anyway, point is that this happened for the first few seasons, but then it stopped; there's still always a nude shoot, but people seem to have finally learned not to apply to the show if they don't want to get nudies. But they do still apply to the show even though they don't want to get their hair cut. It's still that unbelievable that someone would do that to them, I think, that you go ahead anyway.
So compare that to Britney: this is seen as a form of self-mutilation, evidenced by the fact that a few days later, people thought it credible that she
attempted suicide. And so, hair: it's an unacknowledged but potent symbol in pop, and maybe the seemingly superficial things we see female popstars do with their hair are worthy of a closer look: P!nk, Ashlee going brunette, etc. I don't really know what this would yield, but if I did, it would be a post rather than a note.
Labels: aesthetics, arcade fire, britney, courtney love, House, john ashcroft, notes, politics, pop, teenpop
