When Paris Hilton emerges from jail, will she be the new model for redemption or merely boost her street cred and hit the scene again with increased fervor having learned nothing?
Everyone who has ever drank too much, cheated on their taxes or indulged in guilty pleasures large and small -- from murder to stealing a taste of cake batter from mom's spatula -- has done it. It's called temporary contrition, short-term bargaining, improvisational petitioning, the expedient epiphany. There are many labels for it but it usually goes something like this:
Dear Lord, I'll never take shrooms again unless they come with a pepperoni pizza if you just make those gangster smurfs I'm seeing go away; Heavenly father, I'll never have twelve shots of vodka again if you heal my liver; Save me omnipotent one, I'll never climb a big-ass dangerous mountain for thrills again if you just send a rescue helicopter; Oh God, I'll never write another piece about Paris Hilton, if you just touch the hearts of the development executives and/or book editors and compel them to bless your humble servant.
Predictably, most people revert to the same ways and means of survival, moral relativity and personal avarice and gluttony after they see that the coast is clear.
Nowhere is this phenomenon more common then in the penal institutions of this great nation, where people conveniently find "Jesus," "Allah," "Krishna" or "Buddha," in lieu of becoming a human shish kabob at the service end of a shank, a cell spouse or a guest of the V.I.P room (very imprisoned prisoner, i.e. solitary).
Usually people wait until they get inside and get scared for their "spiritual" awakening and life affirming changes. Not Paris Hilton. She's got Paparazzi to attract, a public image to mend and sympathy to elicit.
Hilton, who has been sentenced to 23 days in jail -- reduced from 45 -- for driving with a suspended license when she could have just rode in the back of a Rolls Royce Phantom, now has a new fashion accessory: Holy Scripture.
This week, "Reporters" and "Photographers," with apparently no war, immigration debate, federal deficit or healthcare crisis to cover, spotted the Heiress/Celebutante/Reality Show Star/Party Girl/Media Madame at "Bodhi Tree," a bookstore on Melrose, picking up spiritual literature. Also, earlier this week, Paris allegedly strolled around clutching the bible and a self-help book. Inquiring and cynical minds have labeled this a publicity stunt. One blogger even suggested that instead of "Scientology," she should stick to her original religion, "Pornology."
Forgive them for they know not what they do. The same people who yell "Paris" to get her to turn for a picture are now trivializing what must be a very painful realization and transformation for someone who up until her TV show didn't know what Wal-Mart was. This is someone who wore a "Vote or Die" t-shirt but didn't vote. Moreover, except to go to Palos Verdes or Newport Beach, Paris has probably never been south of Interstate 10, much less east of the Harbor Freeway and west of Interstate-5. For those unfamiliar with the arteries of greater Los Angeles, this is the Watts/Compton enclave, which is adjacent to a detention area where Hilton will likely be housed.
It's wake-that-ass-up time. Paris Hilton will trade Prada sandles for simple orange or blue sandals and other jail couture. She will be without Blackberrys, Spring Rolls, Martinis and Egyptian Cotton. She will be in the real word, a realer world than MTV could have ever thought of, a realer world than most of us ever want to be in. With that, it would be remarkable if this experience really did spark a valuable turning point for America's favorite non-celebrity celebrity.
For the first time in more than a decade, Hilton will be free from the scrutiny, from the media and fan duplicity. This is Paris's chance to really change, to stop using her body as a depository for various spirits, exotic and synthetic narcotics and male proteins. This is her chance to live the really, really, really simple life with the cameras off.
Wouldn't it be extraordinary if she really got inspired by reading about Saul of Tarsus's transformation from persecutor and murderer to Apostle Paul the saint? What if she applied Job's unshakable faith or even Prince Siddhartha Gautama's -- later called Buddha -- lifelong quest for knowledge, self-realization and enlightenment? Maybe she can even copy out the words of the dictionary like Malcolm X from Aardvark to Zephyr and come out of confinement saying things like, "freedom over fallacy, human dignity over heresy, substance over style, purpose over persiflage. That's Hot."
She can then write a memoir about time spent behind bars, talk about her "new" vision, convince Rick and Kathy Hilton -- her parents -- to open up a "Homeless Hilton." She'll stop wasting her life and become America's Lady Diana, decrying the current standards of institutionalized sexism, racism and classism. She'll be an advocate for victims of progress, an articulate orator warning about the negative effects of globalization. Maybe she'll even go to college, marry a rich liberal do-gooder or progressive conservative and eventually become a first lady whose life is to be emulated not for the way she wore Chanel but for the way she channels perseverance, for the way she stared in the face of a personal abyss and did not go gently into that good night. Or.......
Or she'll do less than a month in a special detention dorm away from general population and away from reality. She'll read nothing, do some sit-ups, crunches and pull-ups, get a tattoo that says PH4LIFE and come out with new street cred, leaving the jail in a Maybach sitting on twenty-inch spinner rims. After that she'll hit the talk show circuit and spew rehearsed gibberish about her experience. She'll write that memoir but with no substance and sell a percentage of her life rights for the obligatory biopic. Finally, she'll sit around a posh lounge and discuss the intricacies of the cigarette currency exchange system, and how it effects interest rates and supply and demand curves in jail. Then she'll giggle with her friends and say, "that's hot."
In the end, what will really happen will probably be something akin to a happy medium between total metamorphosis and continued stasis. One thing is for sure, we could all learn from Paris Hilton's experience about how to be less duplicitous, less hypocritical and less frivolous, about how to seek improvement not from a place of desperation but as an everyday endeavor. Sadly though we continue. We'll pretend not to care about Paris until we do and then we won't again until we do. A lot of us will say never again and most of us will be pious for a time and then end up doing whatever it is we do.....again. The world is counting on you, Paris Hilton, to set an example! Or not.
