a fight for the soul of poptimism...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

...has broken out on this thread. Since I am now using 'poptimist' with scare quotes, it may be possible that I am about to publicly 'break' with 'the' 'movement'. :-)

Comments

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

1. Inherited Wealth
2. First fame bump for Sex Video
3. Participated in TV programs whose point was how stupid/rich she was.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't understand how any of this is particularly repulsive though.

1. Lily Allen to thread
2. Erm, she comes off as the victim here? It's not a very nice thing to have done to you, your sleazy ex selling a video of you having sex
3. again what is wrong with being stupid/rich? lots of great popstars have been both. and they were programmes which many people seemed to enjoy.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well #2 is misogyny, which we can roll our eyes about but it's silly to pretend doesn't play a part in people's judgement.

#3 you're missing Andrew's point - most people enjoyed those programmes because the point of them was to LAUGH AT PARIS! i.e.

"Paris thinks she can work on a farm. Have a laugh at her getting it wrong in an endearing fashion."

is not a HUGE step from

"Paris thinks she can make a record. Have a laugh at her getting it wrong in an endearing fashion."

That is the pre-arranged media script for the album. You are departing quite strongly from it and getting people's back up, in the same way as someone being serious at an office party might.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

But wasn't the point of the programme that Paris neither thought she could work on a farm nor particularly cared?

When I talked to her PR he said he wanted people to treat it like they would the Xtina album. And it hasn't actually been savaged by critics particularly.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Lex a PR who tells journalists, "Go on then, have a laugh at my client", is not going to keep their job very long!!! (or is AWESOMELY clever if they do!)

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

But it's difficult to treat it the same as the Xtina album because the latter is/has a better overall product i.e. terrific voice, huge production values. Paris could have the latter but not the former (and I might prefer PH album production if it's more 'modern' or 'futuristic' than Xtina's retro bluster. But she could still be as arresting (a more appropriate word than 'convincing' perhaps) as Xtina. Is she though? On occasion, almost!

[cis.livejournal.com]

Like Tom says, misogyny is heavily in action on #2 - the version of events where it's her sleazy ex selling off a video, which is the one you and I subscribe to, isn't necessarily what people think of: instead it's "she took part in a sex video (slut) and then took advantage of the notoriety she got off the back of it rather than being too ashamed to ever show her face in public again (like a nice girl would)".

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

The thing I am concerned about before weighing more heavily into this debate is how many blowjob clips I am going to have to negotiate whilst attempting to download this album.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I would recommend judicious use of track titles in yr search string, certainly.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

But that's really horrible though.

(have been reading many articles about how feminism has regressed over the past decade, and many things are acceptable now which weren't in the 90s; i agree, and blame lads' mags)

[cis.livejournal.com]

it's horrible but it's a very common reaction among both women and men!

My personal most saddenning thing about feminism these days is that so many young women say "i'm not a feminist or anything" when they so clearly have feminist values, because to them "feminist" means "horrible strident man-hater", and it seems like nothing can be done to turn them around on this.

[juror8.livejournal.com]

Isn't that a slightly loose retelling of the story? Two people have sex on camera (whilst the male partner is still married to someone else). The video is then sold to Red Light, in an amazingly well-timed PR coup for a "celebrity" nobody had actually heard of before, two weeks before her prime time TV show starts. Said celebrity then claims to have been drug raped during a lawsuit, until Red Light agree to pay her a percentage of the profits.

So the upshoot of this is either a) it's OK to lie about being raped if you think it will win you lots of money or b) it doesn't matter if a woman says "No" as long as you pay her afterwards.

Yay feminism.

[cis.livejournal.com]

or c) if there's been a sex tape sold of you there is no way you will be able to claw back any kind of dignity from the situation so you might as well go all-out and try and get something; no matter what you do you will be branded a whore, what's the point in trying to be otherwise.

I've never heard your version of the events before: I have no idea what's 'true'.

I'm not sure what place 'yay feminism' has here? I suppose if there is ugly dishonesty here she'd be taking unfair advantage of the benefits feminism has brough for women but that's just what happens: the existence of benefit cheats doesn't morally invalidate the welfare state.

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

I think it's super-questionable to ascribe being repulsed by Paris Hilton to an anti-feminist stance, though. I think the repulsion specifically directed at her sexual behavior was more confirmed by the sex tape than actually generated by it, and Paris herself seems to be consciously marketing herself by embodying every negative stereotype possible--she's presenting herself as shallow, greedy, lazy, bitchy, and stupid, whether or not she actually is any of these things, and it seems actually fairly anti-feminist to cheer these things. (Plus the whole "apparently she's racist" thing.) I mean you can say "if a man was doing it people would cheer" but probably the same people who are cheering for her as it is.

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

(I'm not saying any of this should change one's perception of the album of course since I'm a Good Poptimist, but I think it's wholly understandable why people of good character might not particularly like Paris Hilton.)

[juror8.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not even "apparently". The video footage is out there.

Lex, what do you think of Paris referring to two black guys as "dumb niggers"?

[cis.livejournal.com]

Dude, seriously, have either Lex or I ascribed being repulsed by PH to an anti-feminist stance? I know quite a few feminists who I can confidently predict would be repulsed by PH if they think about her at all. Also, ffs, misogyny is not anti-feminism, nor is anti-feminism necessarily misogyny.

My point is not that disliking PH cos of her behaviour post-sex video is inherently misogynistic, but that it can involve misogyny - does Dom's claim that she orchestrated the whole thing for exposure, then lied in order to get even more money from it, which attributes her with the lion's share of the power in this situation, mean that he's expressing his fear of potential female use of her sexuality for her own ends, or that he's celebrating her cunning at playing the gender-roles system? Or does it mean neither? That he heard it somewhere and thinks it plausible? That it's nothing to do with his attitudes to women, just to do with his attitudes to Paris Hilton? I'm not sitting here going "if you hate Paris you hate all women" because it's patently bollocks. But it's just as untrue to pretend that there isn't any misogyny involved in the reaction to Paris Hilton which boils down to "the correct reaction to the sex tape being sold would have been to never be seen in public again (never mind that she would still be known forever as 'that girl from the sex tape' no matter what she did), since she hasn't done that she is clearly shameless and A Bad Person who is probably to blame for it in the first place".

I'm confused, I'm afraid - Dom's version of events tells me that no-one knew about Paris before the sex tape which was two weeks before The Simple Life started airing; your version says that people were repulsed about her sexual behaviour before the sex tape appeared to confirm their repulsion, which implies either that she was known for her promiscuity or sexual adventuring (although i've heard the tape is very vanilla and she's mostly bored during?) or that only extreme prudes find the tape distasteful. Do we have a timeline anywhere that we can refer to?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

But none of those stereotypes are new! Plenty of popstars, AND their material, have been shown to be any to all of those things ever since the form began. And it's not limited to pop music either.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

1) Dude, people totally mark Lily Allen down because of her dad! But more to the point I can't imagine that being Keith Allen's daughter is an unending pot of riches. Crucially she wasn't famous before her career started (IE not in the "out on the town" magazines that were Paris's pre-Fame fame) and crucially crucially she's outgrown that - her musical income now dwarfs any pocketmoney she recieves from her dad, which I can't imagine is the case for Paris. Which is the thing that causes the problem, the idea that she doesn't NEED us to like her, she could go back to just being mind-bogglingly rich.

2) She's famous because of a sex video, it's a mark against her in the eyes of many who are more prudish than they'd claim. Also her (expert) riding of this to greater fame is seen as buying into it.

3) My point exactly(ish) - I meant to say that a part of this is that it was her second fame bump - IE people hate that it worked! Though the particular combination of rich/stupid that rankles is a ignorance and disinterest in how the lower classes live - contrary to your belief the diva is not in fact a widely-loved archetype (particularly when there's no identification - people who rose are obviously given an easier time than those who were born on cloud nine)

I have to stop using so many dashes.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Clearly we will not be able to resolve this properly until the arrival of the PEACHES GELDOF album.

Also Lex, why is it that you are so pro-Paris Hilton 2006 for being all "I am a hugely famous and fancied celebrity but I really need true love" and so anti-Robbie Williams 1996 whose early records addressed that exact same theme AND challenged the listener to reassess the singer's baggage in the same way?

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

And the fact that Poptimists has been SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN to be very anti-Robbie in general vindicates my point that The Statement is of lesser importance to The Entertainment Value.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

because Paris chooses to convey this through shiny bright 80s-style pop songs with massive choruses whereas Robbie chose mawkish, leaden piano ballads!

(The Vehicle > The Statement > The Entertainment)

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

There are several reasons why one might celebrate or indeed fetishise Paris Hilton but not Robbie Williams, irrespective of whether one fronts better (however you define that) music generally than the other.

This is a v interesting pickle tho. My probs with Robbie are not actually that he is barely a talent at all, quite mediocre in every respect (as is Paris, tho she has more of a 'blank slate' feel somehow - perhaps just because she is newer than Robbie) but more that his music and songs do not appeal, being as they often quite weak, awkwardly written ballads or pub-rocky/MOR plodders. He has come close to goodness on occasion but 'Rock DJ' and 'Supreme' do not qualify for my iTunes playlist regardless - and nor will 'Rudebox' because of the genuinely poor rapping for which I cannot see a virtue (it could've been great but was misjudged).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

1. I think the fact that Paris doesn't need her musical career to succeed is one of the reasons the album is so good! This is a v small-minded reason though - I would expect nothing better of rockists and so on, but many poptimists are subscribing to the Paris hate as well.

3. Beyoncé has become a global superstar with not many detractors on the back of exactly this!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Indeed, Lily didn't really have much contact with her dad when she was growing up. Her famous parentage obviously helped her get a break but she didn't have a priveliged childhood.

Haha, the dude from Rialto co-wrote one of the songs on her album. Fact of the day.