Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Actual News (sort of): Paris Hilton Tries to Help Drunken Elephants

This caught my eye, and I just had to share...

Hilton Tries to Help Drunken Elephants

Talk about the surreal life...

"The elephants get drunk all the time. It is becoming really dangerous. We need to stop making alcohol available to them."

Can't... breathe... Irony... too powerful...

Really, there are no words...

Well, at least she does think about someone besides herself. *sigh* Drunken elephants, indeed.

Wah! Guess I was too late. This was all the website said now. "AP Kills Paris Hilton Story
GAUHATI, India (AP) -- Kill BC-People-Paris Hilton. Lori Berk, a publicist for Hilton, says she never made any comments about helping drunken elephants in India."

Oh but I can totally picture the article. Just the comments alone had me

Hmmmm. You know me the feminist. There was recently an article in my local daily about how media keeps trashing Britney Spears who, admittedly, has made a mess of her life. However, the article pointed out, there are so many male singers and musicians who have actually behaved worse, drunk more than Britney, used more drugs etcetera, but usually they have not been nearly as lambasted. A man like Keith Richards from Rolling Stones is still far more respected than lampooned.

As for the drunken elephants story, it might well have been all made up. In that case we laugh at it not because Paris Hilton actually said something this crazy, but because it's fun to imagine that she of all people would. It's so much fun to laugh at a beautiful woman who seems to be so absolutely brainless. Okay, but are all male musicians, singers and models super smart? If not, why don't we hear any such stories about them?

I came across this list of singers and artists that fans hate so much that they want to kill (figuratively, hopefully). As you can see, the top four names on the lets-kill-them list are female, and six out of the top seven are female. There is something about our society that tells people that it's okay to make fun of, belittle and express contempt of beautiful and successful women.

Singers to be shot

Oh, and by the way... just this weekend I read about about an American researcher who had made research into how sexist jokes affect men. He found, rather unsurprisingly, that sexist jokes make men more sexist, more contemptuous and less empathic toward women.

Sexist Humor No Laughing Matter

Ann

Awwww - by the time I got there, they'd taken it down and issued a correction. Spoilsports!

I'd dispute your theory, Ann - surprised? Russell Crowe, for example, has been pretty much pilloried by the press for his appalling behaviour in the past, as have many other male celebs. Some male celebs seem to get away with it, yes - but then so do some iconic female celebs. Naomi Campbell, anyone? Plus, most any diva you care to mention. They seem to be excused the most grossly appalling behaviour - including abusing their staff and physical assault - on the grounds that they are divas and are 'temperamental'. :rolleyes:

So I really don't think you can work in any correlation to an anti-female celeb agenda by the media. It's pretty much swings and roundabouts, no matter what gender you are. Although, it is true that there are genuine gender biases in the media when it comes to celebs. I don't think this is one of them though.

Actually, my contempt for the Paris Hiltons of this world isn't that they are beautiful and successful but that their success is based on absolutely nothing worthwhile and they are pretty much a waste of good air and a drain on resources. And Paris has pretty much built her career on being the brainless bimbo, so I don't think she can complain really that that's how she's perceived and that people give her little respect for it.

Actually, in conjunction with that, what I find most ironic and amusing about this one is that Paris and her publicity people were so quick to set the record straight and ensure we all knew that she had zero concern for drunken elephants and expressed no desire to aid them in their plight at all. It seems quite a bizarre thing to try and establish your distance from. You'd think the impression that she was all for helping poor drunken creatures and had expressed any desire at all to help something other than herself might be something she'd want to encourage. It would have seemed to me to have been an asset to her image rather than a detraction.

LabRat

We'll have to agree to disagree, LabRat. Russell Crowe has been pilloried for his behaviour? Not in the dailies I read.

When it comes to that "Let's shoot them" list, the two top names, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, are very famous female artists. But as for the top male artist on the hate list, John Mayer, I have never heard of him.

I tried to find some statistics about male and female artists' earnings. I found this:

The richest rock stars of 2006

Scroll down a bit, and you'll find the top thirty list. Out of those thirty artists, I could identify only one, Celine Dion, as a woman. As far as I can judge, the nine artists or groups above her are all male. If that is true, then in 2006, out of the top ten artists, male artists made 583.4 million dollars, and female artists made $38.5 million. Or, to put it differently, male artists made fifteen times as much money as female artists. Of course, if I'm right and all the artists on the list except Celine Dion are male, then the money gap is even wider.

EDIT: I can see now that there was one more woman there, Gwen Stefani.

By the way, did you know that Dave Matthew's Band (who???) are number nine on that list, ahead of the richest female?

So I guess that either people are conditioned to look up to males and revile females, or else we are just born to react that way, or else male artist are just twenty-nine times more talented than females. Take your pick.

In Sweden recently, five ministers in the government have been found guilty of tax evasion. Three of them were forced to resign. Guess what? They were women. Two of them were not reprimanded at all. Guess what? They were men.

Ann

Rolling Stone and that celebrities to kill webpage seem to me shady sources to support discussions on (financial) equity between the sexes, even if it is the entertainment business, but that's just me and my biases.

In any case, I also wanted to point out that a lot of fan hate can boil down to overexposure. And who gets overexposure at least in the US (and I imagine, to a less degree, perhaps the UK), women or men?

I think an argument can be made that since sex sells, women are generally more likely to get more media attention than men. Obviously, that has its own consequences, not the least is simply wearing out your welcome with the public.

And I'm also pretty suspicious of the easy correlation between talent and financial gain. I'm just too cynical to believe that. Talent seems to be just part of a large equation that involves market trends, advertising, previously existing fan base (aka how long the artist had been around) and generally management.

So no, it's definitely not that women artists are either more "reviled" (too harsh a term IMO), or less talented. I'm not saying sex isn't part of the equation, just that, as usual, it's very messy to boil down to just that without considering a plethora of other factors.

Labrat wrote:

Nah, dude, it would damage her image. Wouldn't want that.

alcyone

There are many points I could bring up, but one is, since often the largest number of fans of a artist or group are of the opposite sex, is it men's fault that 9 of the top ten artists/groups in making money are male. I'm not buying any CDs really, personally, but are we men not buying enough Celine Dion CDs. I may be wrong, and it could have to do with promotions. I do know that over half the artists I listen to seem to be female.

Well, Ann, I think that the "singers to be shot" list can't be taken seriously. I mean, the guy who put it on the web calls himself "punkrocker4". So, do you honestly believe that everybody (or at least most people) would agree with him and his taste in music and musicians? Honestly, I doubt it.

So, about that sexist humor article... Have you ever considered what would happen if the very same experiment was done with women? Of course, it would have to be jokes about men they'd have to be exposed to. Although I doubt that it would work quite as well. But if they were exposed to a movie where all the bad things men are known to do to women (beating their wives, leaving their families to hook up with their secretary, sexist behavior in general and rape in particular) - I think the result would be pretty much the same.

What I'm trying to say is that the proof that men can be made more sexist by certain influence (eg sexist jokes) doesn't prove that women can't be influenced just the same. Maybe you'd need another way to influence them (emotion instead of jokes?), but I think we're just as fallible as men. Maybe not quite as bad, but not that much better.

When it comes to how much certain singers earn - okay, you have a point there. But, as Woody pointed out, it's mostly the opposite sex that buys an artist's music. And I tend to believe that men are more rational in that regard than men. I've seen many teenage girls who were just crazy about the Backstreet Boys (or Take That, in my time), and they would buy *everything* they could if only the name of their group was on it. I couldn't make out the same tendency among teenage boys, though. So, does that mean I'm prejudiced?

So, back to Britney, since you had to bring her up. I don't think that the worst about her is that she is known as a drinker, party-girl and drug consumer. To me, it's much worse how irresponsible she acts considering she has (or used to have) two little boys depending on her. A mother, much less a single mother, is not supposed to spend most of her time partying or in a drunken (or drug-induced) stupor. I certainly remember a few occasion where she really acted irresponsible and careless, each time endangering at least one of her sons. There was that incident where she drove a car with her oldest (the other one wasn't born yet, I believe) sitting on her lap! I mean, how stupid can she be? But the best part of it was that she claimed that she didn't *think* because she was so frightened of paparazzi. I also remember that time where she had he youngest one on her arm. She stumbled along on high heels (likely drunk, judging by her facial expression *and* her stumbling) and was holding him on only one arm. Terribly insecure at the best of times, terribly dangerous in her circumstances. She tripped, and her baby boy would have dropped to the hard pavement if it weren't for one of her bodyguards.

What I'm trying to say here is that, yes, she has definitely made a mess of her life. You might argue that everybody has the right to do just that, and I'd have to agree. But only so long as he or she doesn't endanger innocent others, much less her very own children.

As for Paris Hilton... What is she famous for? Oh, right, for being incredibly rich, something she has done nothing for. For her affairs (One Night in Paris). For her partying. For her brainless remarks. ("I didn't know people have to actually work for their money.") For her dangerous and illegal driving style and her consequenting stay in jail. So *how* do you want the public to perceive her other than as a slut with more money than brains? (Forgive the language, please.)

Ann, don't get me wrong. I know that sexism exists and that it's important to be aware of it. But I think you overdo it a little.

If male artists make more money because it's mostly women who buy CDs, then actresses should make more money than actors, because it's mostly men who watch movies. I tried to find a list of the best-paid Hollywood actors and actresses, but it was unbelievably hard to find anything. This was the best I could do:

Best-paid actors and actresses

This list is extremely hard to read, because the top ten actors and actresses are listed alphabetically, according to their last names. That way the actors and actresses, their ages and their earnings come out all jumbled. To make sense of the list, I added up the total earnings of the top ten actors and the total earnings of the top ten actresses. This is the result:

Total earnings of the top ten actors:
$311.5

Total earnings of the top ten actresses:
$127.5

In other words, the actors make more than twice as much money as the actresses.

Guess the guys who watch movies like to watch other guys after all. Or else a sufficient number of people just agree that guys are worth more than girls.

Ann

EDIT: Mellie, I don't much like either Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. But I think that we tend to judge women more harshly than we judge men, and maybe we appreciate men more than we appreciate women, too.

New York times published an article yesterday, which points out that even the cartoon animals in cartoon movies are almost always males. For example, there is a recent father and son cartoon about bees, and, as the author points out, the father and sons are given roles that males bees never play in real life!