Not one thing about MzzHilton rings my bell and I have been a lover of women all my life. MzzHilton, to me, is representative of excess, wretched excess. Why can't she enjoy her money and leave the public alone? Honestly, I think Paris Hilton is an emotional wreck. She needs an intervention of some kind administered by someone who loves her. What can you give the woman who has everything? I wonder if anyone in the world sincerely loves Paris Hilton enough to even try.
Leah - 14 years ago
The main component for glamour that Paris Hilton lacks is mystery. When there are sex tapes of you on the internet, there is no more mystery. But even before then, Ms. Hilton made herself always available to the media; she lives a life in the public spotlight. And despite having access, literally, to the world, she shows no signs of being wordly or sophisticated, but rather comes across as quite naive and childlike. Ms. Hilton seems to me like someone who inspires lust, but not someone who inspires that longing ache, that intese need to just share the same space. As an adult, hetero woman, I find glamourous women often instill in other (adult, hetero) women a deep indentification desire. I don't know a single (adult, hetero) woman who would want to *be* Paris Hilton.
When I made the poll, I thought "Other" would provide exactly such a blank, but it didn't. I would have left it out if I'd known it was such a stupid category.
Jason - 14 years ago
What's the point in providing a text field for "Other" if you don't show people's witty answers?
ffvsartoris - 14 years ago
What this proves is how few have ever considered how totally artificial "glamour" is..... One only needs to go look at publicity stills from Hollywood in the 1940s to see how it is created. Then it helps to see how the star factory worked in support.
Our poor ladies today have no support. They have their PR people... but in an age of proletarian fashion (how many colors and cuts can your jeans have?) ... One has to control the proscenium arch to get glamour. Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfieffer, Emanuelle Beart, Catherine Deneuve can be depending on how they are presented.
Today's celeb media unintentionally wrecks the whole effect it is trying to cover... classic participant/observer paradox
Intelligence has nothing to do with it. Paris Hilton, Babe Paley, and her daughter Amanda Burden all have glamour and their total IQs barely break 100.
Kelly Starks - 14 years ago
Glamorous?!
This has got to be a joke!
She’s the cheerful enthusiastic walking example of decadence, and modern gilded age sleaze. From wet t-shirt contest like BurgerKing commercials, to private sex tapes, to public lewd behavior, to boasting about boy and girlfriends. Shes about as glamorous as a porn star. She’ll pretty much do anything for press attention.
Before Paris the word Hilton would automatically bring up images of a respected chain of Hotels. After Paris – I’m guessing your first thought would be something from a tabloid..... I imagine grand daddy Hilton isn’t happy with her single handedly dragging the Hilton name into the mud.
For a counter example of glamour among the rich and famous, I offer Ivanka Trump as an example. Far hotter, also did modeling as a hobby earlier – now more likely to make headlines for her manage or her rising business carrier.
Arthur Boehm - 14 years ago
Re above, I should say that my response to PH is unclouded by eros and its imperatives. It CAN forgive much, but that isn't exactly relevant to the glamor issue. That is, sexual attractiveness can play a part in, but doesn't equal glamor.
Steve - 14 years ago
She might be, if she'd eat something and read a book. NOT a fashion magazine with her on the cover. A BOOK!! Oh, and eat something will you PH. Unlike Arthur above, I'm strictly hetero, and I do NOT understand the current trend of women and girls who like like thin, 15 y/o boys.
Women are supposed to look like women!! Round and curvy. Soft, voluptuous and warm.
Cute, yes; frolicsome, yes; but can a puppy be glamorous? I rather think not.
Arthur Boehm - 14 years ago
As a gay man, I'm entirely immune to PH's sexual allure, such as it may or may not be. So my response to her is unclouded (or "unclouded") by the matter of what eros forgives or doesn't.
True glamor, its projection, requires mystery; we must be drawn to something both recognizable, in the sense that it embodies certain culturally derived ideals of allure, and that which we don't recognize--or can't immediately name, but which is nonetheless compelling, yields a heightened sense of ourselves, of reality.
PH fails to do this as she's immediately "knowable," to the bottom of her (undoubtedly) well-shod toes. She's a (reasonably happy) beauty construct/commodity we've all seen before, which in itself part of her appeal. She may be sexy or cute or pretty, but she's not glamorous.
TeflonHeretic - 14 years ago
She's intensely sexy and undeniably attractive physically (it's those eyes, mostly,) but her private reputation - that patina of post-civilized sleaze - makes "glamorous" impossible for her. Glamour is all about outstanding *character* combined with a sense of unassailable *dignity* as the internal framework for beauty, and only a rare few still have both - think: Lauren Bacall, Michelle Yeoh, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Beart, Angelina Jolie, Patricia Kaas, Ayaka Hirahara.
Those qualities are right out the window when you're best noted for hanging around with people who intentionally flash gynecological crotch views to the general public, for stints in jail, for leaked explicit sex videos (also likely intentional, for media attention,) for more or less constant and aimless hedonism, and precious little in the way of tangible achievement. America's contemporary culture can only be described as barbarism coasting along on the slowing momentum of a civilized past, and the consequent, intensely-boring depravity is showing through nearly everywhere.
If you want a vivid contrast, do a side-by-side comparison of any given American TV drama series and of any given TV drama series from Japan or S. Korea - and the respective attractiveness of the actors in each. If you don't come away both stunned and saddened, you should just start checking for a pulse. That may seem a wide tangent, but the point is: You will see in Japanese and Korean cultures (likely others too, but within my experience,) a sense of quiet human dignity that is alive and well - often as vivid and stunning as Bacall, Bogart, Kelly, Caron, Connery, Andrews - but which has been all but lost in present-day America. Spend some time with unpretentious series like "With Love," "Edison no Haha" and "Life," and you may find yourself face-to-face with an odd transformation: Suddenly, a huge swath of today's "A-List" of American tabloid-trashy stardom will seem to possess about as much glamour as a pair of worn-out sneakers, gathering dust-bunnies in a dank corner right next to a largish wad of used chewing gum.
Squeaky-clean respectability can of course gravitate so far in the opposite direction it can morph into stuffy prudery, but even that would be infinitely preferable to the dead-end of "trashy" that contemporary American culture has reached, all too obviously. The comparative examples one could pick are endless, not only in American vs. foreign cultures, but in American culture today vs. American culture of fifty years ago.
A simple experiment on this last is the "Video Store 360 test":
1. Go to a local movie rental store, stand in the middle, point your finger straight ahead and close your eyes;
2. Turn through at least 360 degrees, stop and open your eyes;
3. Pick whatever you're pointing at and rent it;
4. Go to the Classics rack and rent any classic - or even B-Movie - from 45+ years ago;
5. Go home and watch them back-to-back, the classic first.
Again, if you don't come away both stunned and saddened, you should just start checking for a pulse. Where our culture went, there too went the possibility of true glamour, with but a few rare personalities. We have a whole lot of work to do, I'm afraid - like a second Renaissance and Enlightenment - if we wish to climb from this particular gutter back into the light of civilization.
Not one thing about MzzHilton rings my bell and I have been a lover of women all my life. MzzHilton, to me, is representative of excess, wretched excess. Why can't she enjoy her money and leave the public alone? Honestly, I think Paris Hilton is an emotional wreck. She needs an intervention of some kind administered by someone who loves her. What can you give the woman who has everything? I wonder if anyone in the world sincerely loves Paris Hilton enough to even try.
The main component for glamour that Paris Hilton lacks is mystery. When there are sex tapes of you on the internet, there is no more mystery. But even before then, Ms. Hilton made herself always available to the media; she lives a life in the public spotlight. And despite having access, literally, to the world, she shows no signs of being wordly or sophisticated, but rather comes across as quite naive and childlike. Ms. Hilton seems to me like someone who inspires lust, but not someone who inspires that longing ache, that intese need to just share the same space. As an adult, hetero woman, I find glamourous women often instill in other (adult, hetero) women a deep indentification desire. I don't know a single (adult, hetero) woman who would want to *be* Paris Hilton.
When I made the poll, I thought "Other" would provide exactly such a blank, but it didn't. I would have left it out if I'd known it was such a stupid category.
What's the point in providing a text field for "Other" if you don't show people's witty answers?
What this proves is how few have ever considered how totally artificial "glamour" is..... One only needs to go look at publicity stills from Hollywood in the 1940s to see how it is created. Then it helps to see how the star factory worked in support.
Our poor ladies today have no support. They have their PR people... but in an age of proletarian fashion (how many colors and cuts can your jeans have?) ... One has to control the proscenium arch to get glamour. Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfieffer, Emanuelle Beart, Catherine Deneuve can be depending on how they are presented.
Today's celeb media unintentionally wrecks the whole effect it is trying to cover... classic participant/observer paradox
Intelligence has nothing to do with it. Paris Hilton, Babe Paley, and her daughter Amanda Burden all have glamour and their total IQs barely break 100.
Glamorous?!
This has got to be a joke!
She’s the cheerful enthusiastic walking example of decadence, and modern gilded age sleaze. From wet t-shirt contest like BurgerKing commercials, to private sex tapes, to public lewd behavior, to boasting about boy and girlfriends. Shes about as glamorous as a porn star. She’ll pretty much do anything for press attention.
Before Paris the word Hilton would automatically bring up images of a respected chain of Hotels. After Paris – I’m guessing your first thought would be something from a tabloid..... I imagine grand daddy Hilton isn’t happy with her single handedly dragging the Hilton name into the mud.
For a counter example of glamour among the rich and famous, I offer Ivanka Trump as an example. Far hotter, also did modeling as a hobby earlier – now more likely to make headlines for her manage or her rising business carrier.
Re above, I should say that my response to PH is unclouded by eros and its imperatives. It CAN forgive much, but that isn't exactly relevant to the glamor issue. That is, sexual attractiveness can play a part in, but doesn't equal glamor.
She might be, if she'd eat something and read a book. NOT a fashion magazine with her on the cover. A BOOK!! Oh, and eat something will you PH. Unlike Arthur above, I'm strictly hetero, and I do NOT understand the current trend of women and girls who like like thin, 15 y/o boys.
Women are supposed to look like women!! Round and curvy. Soft, voluptuous and warm.
disregard url on previous
Cute, yes; frolicsome, yes; but can a puppy be glamorous? I rather think not.
As a gay man, I'm entirely immune to PH's sexual allure, such as it may or may not be. So my response to her is unclouded (or "unclouded") by the matter of what eros forgives or doesn't.
True glamor, its projection, requires mystery; we must be drawn to something both recognizable, in the sense that it embodies certain culturally derived ideals of allure, and that which we don't recognize--or can't immediately name, but which is nonetheless compelling, yields a heightened sense of ourselves, of reality.
PH fails to do this as she's immediately "knowable," to the bottom of her (undoubtedly) well-shod toes. She's a (reasonably happy) beauty construct/commodity we've all seen before, which in itself part of her appeal. She may be sexy or cute or pretty, but she's not glamorous.
She's intensely sexy and undeniably attractive physically (it's those eyes, mostly,) but her private reputation - that patina of post-civilized sleaze - makes "glamorous" impossible for her. Glamour is all about outstanding *character* combined with a sense of unassailable *dignity* as the internal framework for beauty, and only a rare few still have both - think: Lauren Bacall, Michelle Yeoh, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Beart, Angelina Jolie, Patricia Kaas, Ayaka Hirahara.
Those qualities are right out the window when you're best noted for hanging around with people who intentionally flash gynecological crotch views to the general public, for stints in jail, for leaked explicit sex videos (also likely intentional, for media attention,) for more or less constant and aimless hedonism, and precious little in the way of tangible achievement. America's contemporary culture can only be described as barbarism coasting along on the slowing momentum of a civilized past, and the consequent, intensely-boring depravity is showing through nearly everywhere.
If you want a vivid contrast, do a side-by-side comparison of any given American TV drama series and of any given TV drama series from Japan or S. Korea - and the respective attractiveness of the actors in each. If you don't come away both stunned and saddened, you should just start checking for a pulse. That may seem a wide tangent, but the point is: You will see in Japanese and Korean cultures (likely others too, but within my experience,) a sense of quiet human dignity that is alive and well - often as vivid and stunning as Bacall, Bogart, Kelly, Caron, Connery, Andrews - but which has been all but lost in present-day America. Spend some time with unpretentious series like "With Love," "Edison no Haha" and "Life," and you may find yourself face-to-face with an odd transformation: Suddenly, a huge swath of today's "A-List" of American tabloid-trashy stardom will seem to possess about as much glamour as a pair of worn-out sneakers, gathering dust-bunnies in a dank corner right next to a largish wad of used chewing gum.
Squeaky-clean respectability can of course gravitate so far in the opposite direction it can morph into stuffy prudery, but even that would be infinitely preferable to the dead-end of "trashy" that contemporary American culture has reached, all too obviously. The comparative examples one could pick are endless, not only in American vs. foreign cultures, but in American culture today vs. American culture of fifty years ago.
A simple experiment on this last is the "Video Store 360 test":
1. Go to a local movie rental store, stand in the middle, point your finger straight ahead and close your eyes;
2. Turn through at least 360 degrees, stop and open your eyes;
3. Pick whatever you're pointing at and rent it;
4. Go to the Classics rack and rent any classic - or even B-Movie - from 45+ years ago;
5. Go home and watch them back-to-back, the classic first.
Again, if you don't come away both stunned and saddened, you should just start checking for a pulse. Where our culture went, there too went the possibility of true glamour, with but a few rare personalities. We have a whole lot of work to do, I'm afraid - like a second Renaissance and Enlightenment - if we wish to climb from this particular gutter back into the light of civilization.