"Kim Kardashian: How do Armenians feel about her fame?"

BBC homes in on the question everyone is asking.

"Kim is an Armenian and famous in the world, so this is enough for every Armenian to be proud of Kim. But because of cultural and traditional issues, they do not want to accept that she is an Armenian," [says BBC monitoring journalist Armen Shahbazian].

Stories about Kardashian are frequently a topic for comedy programmes, he says.

"They always compare the Armenian French singer Charles Aznavour, who they are proud of, with Kim Kardashian, who is seen in a more negative light. They don't want her to present their country," he says.

Deep into this article we get to some comparative material about what the people of Gibraltar think about fashion designer John Galliano and what the people of the Isle of Man think of Dan Quayle, who — "was internationally ridiculed when it appeared he could not spell the word 'potato.'"

Why should more than 10 people show up at a Sak 'n Save at in Reno to see Sandra Fluke?

Who is this woman? Why is she a celebrity? She's read a couple of speeches prominently, in Washington D.C., where she was selected for that role by — which Democratic bigwigs? Why?! And Rush Limbaugh made fun of her elevation into the spotlight. He did it in a crude way that boosted her name recognition. That seems to be the closest thing to something that she did to achieve prominence, and I imagine that in her own mind, surrounded by those who chose her and elevated her, she may think she is an eminent person capable of drawing crowds. What a splash of cold reality to find yourself deposited — by your promoters — at a grocery store in Reno where nobody cares.

Why did Mitch Daniels in Indiana get away with doing something more drastic than what Scott Walker did that set off the huge protests in Wisconsin?

Leon Fink (in Salon) wonders:

In Wisconsin, the union presence seemed wedded to a deep sense of civic identity, including connection to a long-standing state tradition of “progressive” innovation and peaceful reconciliation of differences among competing social and economic interests.

In Indiana, despite the fact that Indianapolis had once hosted more union headquarters than any other city in America, legislated reduction of the union presence triggered no visible sign of larger public hurt. That the union leaders themselves viewed the issue as “mere politics” betrays their own skepticism that worker rights can truly appeal to the public conscience...

That is, love/support/respect for unions needs to be firmly embedded in the culture of the place or you don't get the Wisconsin Effect. Noted. That means you can't suddenly whip up a political frenzy in response to one political move on the other side, no matter how drastic the move is.

Fink drifts off into a reverie. Here's his last paragraph before the one-liner "I’m dreaming, of course. This is Indiana.":

I could only think of how different was the determination of the 1968 Olympic athletes who raised a black-power salute at their official Olympic awards ceremony. If a similar sense of solidarity had been on display in Indianapolis, players from each team might have unfurled a “union” banner — Norma Rae-like — at halftime and carried it aloft to their respective locker rooms. Better yet, they would have handed off the emblems to Madonna, a long-established member of both the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America.

It's actually pretty pathetic when your dreams of deep embeddedness in the culture consist of showy gestures by sports/music/movie celebrities. Madonna, the union member? Why would organizations that boost Madonna resonate with Hoosiers and seem wedded to a deep sense of civic identity?

Face it, Fink: There's a price to be paid for locating liberalism in pop culture. It's not going to be deep. It's inherently shallow. Deeply shallow.

"The weirdest thing about the rumor that Kim Kardashian gets paid $10,000 for a Twitter endorsement is..."

"... that it’s true."

The biggest player in the pay-to-tweet market is Ad.ly, a social-media advertorial clearinghouse pairing brands with celebs to inject highly personalized advertising into their Twitter streams.

"As flames of desire sensuously circle around the tub and weightless bubbles become candy clouds..."

"... I step my bare body into a delicious dream."

(Check out the whole slide show. I don't know if this is funny or sad. I'm definitely nauseated, and I had to check to see if I had a tag for "horrifying." I didn't, and I'm not going to make one for this. I have a threshold of restraint when it comes to creating new tags. But if I'd already had a tag for "horrifying," I'd have added it here. Oddly, I did already have a tag for "bubbles.")

"A lot of bloggers will just grab stuff and make judgments... I love the fact that he’s successful because he’s not trying to be negative."

The celebrity PR people love the extra-nice blogger, who apparently gets invited everywhere (and makes millions). The blogger's name is Jared Eng, and the blog is called Just Jared. Man, I was just thinking about how nobody's going to use the name Jared anymore. Before the recent massacre, Jared was a good new baby name, likely to be chosen by parents attracted to the ultra-popular "J" names — Jacob, Joshua, Justin — and wanting to get a bit more unusual. But, post-massacre, there's a new thirst for syrup...

[M]ore than a few publicists have taken to nicknaming Mr. Eng the “nice Perez Hilton”...

“I don’t throw anyone under the bus,” he said. “It’s all objective and/or positive.”...

Mr. Eng had a very sheltered childhood, growing up in Fresh Meadows, Queens, the third oldest among five boys. His Chinese-American parents raised him strictly, limiting his television diet to 30 minutes per week....

30 minutes! Outrageous slacking! Somebody call Amy Chua! That boy's a disgrace!

"I'm desperate to go back to normal. I'm downgrading and going a little smaller, to a D or a double D."

The ever-changing definition of "normal."

Though it's been more than nine months since she went under the knife, [Heidi] Montag says she is still in severe pain and her body has not acclimated to the over-the-top breast augmentation.

"I have major anxiety about it," she confides. "I was taking painkillers but they weren't working, so I stopped. It hurt either way," 

In addition to the physical pain, the busty blond reality star's new assets have prevented her from properly hugging her four dogs or wearing anything that isn't a custom-made design.

"I'm obsessed with fitness but it's impossible to work out with these boobs," Montag says. "It's heartbreaking. I can't live an everyday life." 

Yet, on the plus side, there is all the publicity and reality show material entailed in this "realization" and subsequent additional surgery — and surgery is her only real basis for fame.

With the passing of her confidant Dr. Ryan, Montag fears that she will be stuck living in her cartoon-like figure forever.

"I feel trapped in my own body," she confesses. "There's just no fixing it. Dr. Ryan knows the work he did, he knows everything."

Because how could another doctor ever locate those implants?

... Montag was quick to squash the rumors....

Oh! The imagery!

Find a doctor to (find and) remove your implants, and find the decency to remove your "downgraded" self from the public stage.

"Why do I want more haters? If someone had told me when I signed up I'd get half a million haters... It's all about the approval."

When do celebrities quit Twitting? When they don't get the love they sought. Aw. Poor celebrities!

"Chubby celebrities are stoking the obesity crisis by proving it is possible to be fat and famous..."

Emergency. Crush them into oblivion!

"If there's one thing that makes people enthusiastic, it's celebrities being condescending."

Said, re this:

"He cheated... on her?!"

A fascinating photoset, but why do we imagine that if only one is beautiful enough -- or sufficiently more beautiful than the other -- the other won't cheat? I can think of at least 5 reasons why the opposite would be true:

1. The terribly beautiful partner's beauty may have had a bad effect on her (or his) personality, since people lavish attention on a beautiful person without expecting reciprocal warmth, so the less beautiful one strays into the arms of someone kinder, more interesting, or more sexually energetic.

2. The less beautiful one may feel less beautiful and inferior, undeserving of the prize, and need to go elsewhere to feel more comfortable and less pressured.

3. A person who marries a terribly beautiful person has demonstrated his attraction to terribly beautiful individuals, so why wouldn't he (or she) feel captivated by other beautiful women? That Billy Bob Thorton had Laura Dern didn't keep him from seeing and loving Angelina Jolie.

4. A less-good-looking person who has won admiration for his (or her) ability to stand next to someone very beautiful may want his ego stroked a second (or third) time by getting another beautiful person to do the same. The first one might seem like a fluke, but if he can get another, it will prove there is something truly amazing about him.

5. A person who marries someone very beautiful may be a very shallow person, attracted to surfaces and thus less likely to form the kind of bond to the soul of another that will be needed to keep the couple together when the novelty and heat of passion wear out, as they almost surely will.

How did I and "groin" get into this article about tattoos?

Just one of those mysteries I need to solve because I have a Google alert on my name.

And no, it doesn't have to do with my old post -- which I've said exemplifies what I want to do when I blog -- "Tattoos remind you of death."

And when did I ever say that about "groin"? It's in a comment in the post "What Britney's Crotch Did To My Stats."

Oh, yes, tattoos remind me of death. And Britney's crotch reminds me of blog traffic.

Anne Hathaway on Barack Obama: "I was afraid to trust him and I was afraid to have hope when I first kind of became aware of him."

"I was kind of afraid of Obama the first time I saw him... I was afraid to trust him and I was afraid to have hope when I first kind of became aware of him. It was around the time that he gave his speech on race that I just said 'I can't deny how I feel about you, Barack Obama.'"

Oh, celebrities, please just keep talking. You don't ever need to know how ridiculous you are. We love you this way.

Afraid to have hope... an interesting fear, really, isn't it? But the human organism produces the fear response for a reason. Contemplate the survival value of the fear of hope.

"American Prayer" of the damned.

I was just complaining about some annoying web video with low production values, but right after I posted that, I watched this new Obama-promoting video, which has the glossiest production values, and I found it impossible to watch... and I knew I wanted to blog about it so I kept forcing myself, but I had to click stop after a minute and a half:



What made it so insufferable? I admit that I came to it from the Corner, which primed me with the line "Personality on steroids: Obama as the coming, secular Messiah," but I don't think it was that.

It was the the insane discontinuity between the sad-sack dreariness of the photographs and those Hollywood celebrities who were made to look as though they belonged in settings of economic despair. They were photographed in black and white. They made sad faces. There's the normally smarmy Jason Alexander, pressing his hands together in mournful prayer. Jason Alexander! Do you think we will take you seriously because you have that serioso look on your face? The repetition of the word "prayer," with one praying celebrity after another, when you know you're going to be told that the answer to their prayers is Obama.... horrible.

And that miserable song. That vehicle for Hollywood celebrities to express their mourning, depressing, hopeful quasi-religiosity. Am I supposed to know it? I Google and find it described in Wired as "Dave Stewart's 'American Prayer,' featuring the former Eurythmic trying to come off like some sort of cut-rate Bono, as he strums a guitar that's not even audible in the song."

Adding to the video's cringe-worthy nature are celebrity appearances by Forrest Whittaker, Barry Manilow, Jason Alexander, Whoopi Goldberg and others, who join forces with on overwhelming level of "We Are The World"-type smugness.

Certain shots are so deeply embarrassing that we had to hit pause a few times just to make it all the way through. Watch at your own risk, and don't say we didn't warn you.

There's a vote over there to ascertain whether it's "the worst Obama song yet?" and it's winning, though not by all that much, which makes you wonder what cringe-inducing, celebrity-infested swill the "no" voters have in mind.

"We Are The World." We had evolved to the point where we all laughed at it, and now, have we suddenly slipped back into that 80s subordination of art to sanctimony? Then, it was for the sake of feeding starving children. Now, that aesthetic has returned in service of a politician. Yet, surely, it's true that we will look back on this election kitsch and laugh. Soon. Like right now.

ADDED: I'm watching this to the end now, and I'm just shaking my head at how counterproductive this is for Obama. These celebrities are so wrapped up in what they appear to perceive as the poignant beauty of their emotions that they don't see that they are beating us over the head with the idea that America is a terrible place. That is: This video is anti-American. That is not the message Obama wants right now!

Also, at 1:35, you can see the display of crosses that I happen to know is on the beach in Santa Monica. I was just there and took this photograph from the amusement pier:



I made it to the end. This video isn't merely terrible. It's a testament to tone-deafness. It resonates in all the wrong ways with the Obama campaign, amplifying the very things that Obama is trying to mute.

Paris Hilton does a pro-McCain ad!

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Oh? You think it's not pro-McCain? Explain why!

(And I'll tell you why you're wrong.)

ADDED, 12 hours later: I guess I owe you an explanation. My reason for calling this a pro-McCain ad is this. First, of course, Paris Hilton is promoting herself, as she always does. She exploited the opportunity that the McCain ad gave her, as she exploits every opportunity. That's very free-market capitalistic of her, but that's not my big reason. McCain's ad presented her as an airhead (for the purpose of suggesting that Obama is also an airhead), so here she is suddenly being very smart. Her ad has her saying something that we are supposed to accept as exactly what a very smart person would say if they weren't limited by constraints of party politics. She presents her answer on oil as a "hybrid" of the 2 candidates' positions, but listen to it! It's McCain's position. She supports off-shore drilling, with appropriate environmental safeguards, as we encourage the development of alternative energy sources.

That's McCain's position! Secret message of the ad: The smart position is McCain's position and not Obama's.

Now, you might want to say that all that funny stuff at the beginning about McCain's age is anti-McCain. No, it's not! It's McCain's position. McCain is constantly making jokes about how old he is. How many times has he said "I'm older than dirt and more scarred than Frankenstein"?

Finally, Hilton is giving the "biggest celebrity" ad another big boost. That ad has already worked, but it was coming to the end of it's life cycle. Hilton jolted it back alive.



FROM THE COMMENTS (that predate my explanation): Ben (The Tiger) said:

How is it pro-McCain?

1. Well... there's no hint of pulling back from her lifestyle. Looking to where she can fly next is not unlike McCain's call for the sound of fifty thousand Harleys.

2. Her position is very much like McCain's -- drill, but not everywhere. (I'd prefer more drilling.)

3. If she really wanted to skewer McCain, she'd do more than make fun of his age in a way that he did himself on SNL.

4. Obama not seriously engaged.

5. Again, she's not backing down from the American life of excess. There will be no scolding of people's life choices. That doesn't fit with the environmentalist movement.

6. She left the door totally open for the McCain riposte -- "Paris Hilton supports drilling! Paris Hilton has a better energy policy than Barack Obama!"

***

So the ad's objectively pro-McCain.

Was it intentionally pro-McCain?

I suspect so -- I don't think she's dumb.

But then, I'm prejudiced -- I'm a McCain fan.

Beldar said:

I don't think the ad's intentions, other than furthering the popularity ambitions of Ms. Hilton, are at all clear.

Because I already had a view of Obama as (mostly) humorless and of McCain as being willing to poke fun at himself ("older than dirt"), I was inclined to take her comments about the "really old guy" as fond teasing. But honestly, that's me projecting sly wit onto Ms. Hilton that I'm not at all sure she intended.

The ad does McCain palpable damage by its strong suggestion that he opposes conservation. He doesn't. As others have pointed out, what she describes as the "Paris Hilton position" is in fact essentially the McCain position (a combination of prudent development and conservation). In fairness, the McCain campaign itself has muddied these waters by choosing to lampoon Obama for suggesting that people check their tire pressure, which in fact is a perfectly good conservation suggestion, albeit wholly inadequate by itself.

I'm not at all sure why, Prof. A, you think this video cuts so unequivocally in McCain's favor. I think you may be crediting the "average" viewer, or at least large numbers of viewers, with more subtlety and discrimination than they in fact possess, but I eagerly await your promised explanation.

Ben (The Tiger) responds:

I want to see Althouse's explanation, but I think it's telling that almost all the right-wingers whose reactions I've read think that the spot was charming, whatever else they've thought about Paris Hilton in the past. (And I do, too.)

Yeah, and Beldar, the unclarity of Hilton's position is what makes it effective. An openly pro-McCain ad would not be effective. Her above-party-politics pose is .... hot.

Greg Toombs said...

The ad is 90% about McCain (when it's not about Paris) and 10% the 'other guy'/Barack.

Specific McMentions:

1) He's the oldest celebrity in the world
2) like super old
3) dancing a sin & beer in a bucket examples
4) is McCain ready to lead
5) wrinkly, white-haired guy
6) thanks, white-haired dude
7) Paris' energy plan endorses McCain's drilling plus his $300 million battery prize
8) three McCain pictures - none of Barack

It's all about McCain.

When it's not about Paris.

J Lee said:

What makes the ad pro-McCain in large part isn't just what it says, but the McCain camp's reaction to the ad.

Watching how the morning network news shows tried to play it today, the spin was "Paris Hilton strikes back at McCain ad", which is where it would have stayed if they had their way. Unfortunately, they were forced to also cover the McCain camp's reply that credited Ms. Hilton with having a better energy policy than Barack Obama. Had the McCain camp responded with the same sort of humorless "whatever" remark the Obama people did, it would have freed up the big media folks to paint this exclusively as a slap-down of Maverick and his original ad.

Now, here's something different, and very smart, from LB-Philadelphia PA (who has only commented once before, back last year):

Has anyone else picked up on the subliminal racism of the "best tan" comment? I mean, Obama is seriously tanned and he's from Hawaii. It's code, I tell you, code!

Interesting, but is that pro- or anti-Obama point?

"An image right there... of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and ... the Washington Monument.... You tell me why those 2 phallic symbols are placed there..."

NYT columnist Bob Herbert gets embarrassingly mixed up about the image of the Victory Column in Obama's "biggest celebrity" commercial.



Hey, what about the use of Britney Spears in that ad? Spears!! Get it? Everyone knows spears area phallic symbols! Racist too, I might add.

Come on, Bob. Don't give up just because you got the monuments wrong. It's still a phallic symbol, and that ad is full of symbols that just won't quit.

Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Brit + Paris = Europe!

-ney + Hilton = knee + hotel = blatant sexual imagery.

The Obama-Spears-Hilton photo-op.

Context here. Enlarged, widened view here.

"I’m so overexposed, I’m making Paris Hilton look like a recluse."

Hey, Obama started it!

"He's the biggest celebrity in the world... O-BA-MA... O-BA-MA..."

He's a big celebrity, like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton... and gas prices are terrible.... get it? Being really famous and popular often goes along with being an empty nitwit, so if Obama is famous and popular, he's probably an empty nitwit. And gas prices are terrible.

∴ McCain.

It's logic!

IN THE COMMENTS: Bissage sings:

O-Ba-Me
O-Ba-Ma
Life goes on, brah!
La la how the life goes on.

"Why is it so hard for a magazine to shoot a decent celebrity cover?"

Some shocking examples of uglification here. My theory is that magazine editors want professional models and are annoyed to by the fact that celebrity faces on the cover help circulation so much that they can no longer do what their aesthetic sensibilities tell them is right. Thwarted, the wreak their revenge. It's passive aggression.