"The View" on Paris' early release...
"The View" was a hoot this morning with a great broad sitting in as guest host: Lorraine Bracco. She is opionated, loud, funny and goofy and was certainly a fresh air as this show continues its transition to God knows where. So Barbara Walters, who has been looking old and haggard this week (she's 76 not used to working every morning anymore!), opened with the news that Paris Hilton had been released from prison. This is something that makes my friend James very happy over in Ohio because ever since the blonde airhead...er, I mean heiress, was incarcerated a few days ago, he's been sending me "Free Paris!" e-mails! (as a joke...I hope!).
Joy Behar, of course, is a riot: "This girl can get out of more things than David Copperfield!" Joy then wondered aloud if the "medical condition" Paris had in jail that resulted in her serving out her sentence in house arrest was a flare-up of Herpes.
Barbara seemed aghast since, as she said, Kathy Hilton is a "friend" of hers and she was having trouble being objective about all of this. This is Barbara Walters, first female co-anchor of the evening news, hard-news reporter who practicically invented "the get" in journalism, going soft like that. Very disheartening.
Hard-ass Elisabeth Hasselbeck, rather than talk about her close pal George Bush and how wonderful she thinks he and his knucklehead policies are, ripped Paris a new one, however: "She got off easy. She got to keep her extensions an she got out of prison."
Bracco suggested that Paris spend three months doing charity work and have the paparazzi follow her doing that rather than every party and opening in town." Elisabeth remarked that having the paparazzi NOT follow Hilton for three months "would be the ultimate punishment" then she continued to rail about the lack of "justice and accountability" in this case." She was more angry about this, it seemed, than the thousands of soldiers who have been killed in Iraq or the innocent civilians in that country who have been killed.
"I think it's disgusting," Hasselbeck said of the early release.
But Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsefeld, Condi Rice...none of their decisions disgusting, huh?
OK.
Anyway, I'll give Bracco the last word on this. She wondered why the heck all these photogs, blogs and magazines even give a crap about the like of Paris and Lindsey Lohan (wow! Paris housebound and Lohan in rehab...who are the paparazzi gonna follow now? Nicole? Mischa? Yawn.).
"What have they accomplished that makes us make them such an idol?" Bracco wondered.
Hmmmmmmmmmm. I'm stumped.
Greg Hernandez has covered the entertainment industry for the Daily
News since 2001. He's considered a bit odd by some for his obsession
with box office numbers, has been known to camp out near the kitchen
at premieres for first crack at the hors d'oeurves, and Greg's never
seen a red carpet he didn't want to stroll down.
Comments
It's about time Paris Hilton was liberated from captivity. Her jailing was a miscarriage of justice. She was singled out because of her celebrity status.
Posted by: Not Paris | June 7, 2007 01:25 PM
I am very disappointed that you chose to blog about the super-important issue of Pilton, but you totally gloss over the insult to gay families that Mario Cantone threw out in the name of a cheap joke.
Fuck him.
Posted by: chandler in hollywood | June 7, 2007 01:45 PM
Sorry Chandler, I missed Cantone's portion of the show. Can you share what he said and I will post it?
Posted by: Greg Hernandez | June 7, 2007 02:49 PM