Why Paris Hilton Must Be Destroyed

For years we’ve been paralyzed in the tractor beam of her brainless celebrity. Now it’s time to kiss the creepy dollie goodbye.

By Rebecca Traister

You know that point in a Stephen King novel when you’ve sort of figured out that the creepy dollie — the one with the plastic hair and serenely stupid eyes that roll in two different directions — is actually an animate object wreaking havoc and destroying people and you wonder why the townspeople haven’t cottoned on and crushed the damn thing under a truck or something?

I think it’s safe to say we’ve reached that point with Paris Hilton. We need to acknowledge that Hilton is not simply a tabloid diversion but a malevolent blight on the pop culture landscape.

For too many years we have sat, paralyzed in the tractor beam of her wall-eyed celebrity, watching mutely as bad things happened to her band of D-list compatriots. We have witnessed the declining personal fortunes and liver health of her rotating cast of skuzzball BFFs, boyfriends and frenemies — Bijou Phillips, Nicole Richie, Kimberly Stewart, Lindsay Lohan, Brandon Davis, Stavros Niarchos, Tara Reid — because, really, who the hell were those people, anyway?

But then, a couple of weeks ago, Hilton started messing with Britney Spears, weighing down Spears’ Phoenix-flight from her crapola marriage to grody Kevin Federline by dressing her up in tutus, taking her partying till all hours, and encouraging her to flash her whiskerless nether regions to paparazzi.

Now, we all know that Spears is perfectly capable of attracting the interest of Child Protective Services all on her own. But this most recent visit from the state, as reported by Page Six last Wednesday, cuts deeper than any baby-dropping seat-belt infractions ever did.

That’s because we suspect that it has not been prompted simply by Spears’ legendarily poor judgment or naiveté. No. Those unfortunate qualities just made her an easier mark for the pernicious influence of the world’s most famous succubutante, and the rope line of gaunt, twitching bodies in Hilton’s wake tips us off that it’s unlikely to end well for her latest victim.
It’s time to admit that Paris Hilton, that creepy dollie, must be destroyed. Metaphorically, of course.

The other almost-supernatural aspect of Hilton’s reign of harebrained horror is the way that she herself remains intact while those around her wither. Hilton is like some kind of Dorian Gray cockroach. While her buddies waste away and collapse and see their careers flushed down the celebrity toilet after having been in her presence, she grows stronger: appearing on more magazine covers, getting bigger record contracts, attracting more attention, sleeping with more of her fading friends’ boyfriends. Even her Plasticine exterior seems unravaged by her excessive behaviors.

She is, frustratingly, indestructible. Hilton has been caught on tape referring to two black friends as “dumb niggers.” She has been arrested for drunk driving. She has peed herself in a taxicab in Hawaii. She has vomited onstage while singing her own songs. She has laughed like a retarded hyena as boyfriends like Davis and Niarchos have embarrassed themselves and ruined their own reputations.

And yet, she has never had to go on Letterman to apologize; she has never had to meet with leaders of a community to make amends; she never even had to clean the taxi that she befouled. As a completely non-achieving celebrity, there are no higher moral, spiritual or intellectual expectations burdening the heiress. So she’s a moronic, racist, boyfriend-stealing, talentless twit? Surprise. We never thought her anything better.