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Dita Von Teese has fallen in the footsteps of Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, becoming the latest celebrity victim of sex tape scandal. But not like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian who were both exposed as having sex with their former boyfriend, Dita Von Teese, the 35-year-old Wonderbra spokewoman, was revealed that she had hardcore lesbian porn videos in the past.
It seems that everywhere I look this week people are using attacks on sex to replace true political discourse. Earlier this week Pamela Leavey and Ginny Cotts of The Democratic Daily used the fact that I have incluced magazine covers such as the Harper’s Bazaar cover of Britney Spears above in blog posts on popular culture and the media as some sort of “justification” for their defense of Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitism and for preventing me from condemning Gibson’s anti-Semitism when I was a writer on that blog. At the time I thought it was a totally irrational and irrelevant argument. Apparently I missed something. Pamela and Ginny have turned out to be trend setters as a new Puritanicalism has become the “in technique” of character assassination being used by Republicans.
One prominent example was George Allen quoting sexually graphic passages from Jim Webb’s novels. These included passages such as this one from Lost Soldiers:
“A shirtless man walked toward them along a mud pathway. His muscles were young and hard, but his face was devastated with wrinkles. His eyes were so red that they appeared to be burned by fire. A naked boy ran happily toward him from a little plot of dirt. The man grabbed his young son in his arms, turned him upside down, and put the boy’s penis in his mouth.”
This book is clearly shocking to Republicans, except to John McCain, who Publishers Weekly reports endorsed the book: “Webb (Fields of Fire) is no stranger to the bestseller lists; endorsements from heavy hitters like Sen. John McCain will help put him there once again.” Hotline reports McCain also had a blurb on the back cover of the book. Presumably this will be the main issue in the 2008 race should McCain enter it.
Maureen Dowd sums up the Virginia race by writing, “So the Old Dominion race now comes down to one guy denying he’s a racist and the other denying he’s a sexist, and the supposed sexist attacking the supposed racist as a sexist.” She notes the change in Republican political strategy:
The Republicans’ usual trick — having Dick Cheney terrify women into thinking that terrorists will kill their children if they vote for girly Democrats — isn’t flying this year, so now the G.O.P. is resorting to more personal, and goofy, attacks.
Republicans have also launched commercials against Harold Ford accusing him of attending “parties with lingerie-clad Playboy Playmates while he also films political ads in a church.” One of the ads ends with a scantily clad woman saying, “Harold, call me!”
Fortunately the Democrats are on top of these attacks. It might have taken the party five years to respond to the false Republican claims of keeping the country safe after 9/11, but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is firm in their defense on this one. They sent out the following talking points:
- In 1981, Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife Lynne wrote a book called Sisters, which featured a lesbian love affair, brothels and attempted rapes. In 1988, Lynne Cheney wrote about a Republican vice president who dies of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress.
- Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich co-wrote a thriller called 1945, featuring such titillations as biting foreplay, “pouting sex kitten,” “exotic mistress” and “after-bout inhalation.” At one point, the mistress of the president’s chief of staff sits “athwart” her lover’s chest and hisses that he must tell her a secret “or I will make you do terrible things.”
- In 1996, former Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby wrote The Apprentice, a novel that includes references to bestiality, pedophilia and rape.
- In 1999, former GOP Governor William Weld said of his book, Big Ugly, “I think of the theme of this book is sex and money meets the great outdoors.” Weld’s thriller included sex, bribery and murder.
- This week, it was discovered that a Republican statewide candidate in Texas, Susan Combs, wrote a romance novel “full of steamy sex scenes.” The book’s heroine is “a freckle-faced brunette” who is drawn to “the gray-eyed bodyguard” and his “powerful, strong arms,” and desires him to “fill the aching void at her center,” where a “deep heaviness throbbed in her belly.”
Personally I find it a relief to find that those Republicans aren’t all that Puritanical after all. As for America, all I can say is that the Britney Spears cover above is the number one search engine hit on this blog. Make that not just America but the world as this picture regularly receives hits from virtually everywhere, including those countries where women are expected to wear burkas and this type of cover would never be allowed. Review of search engine hits also confirms that America is still trying to figure out what Britney Spears meant by “poodle balling” on her appearance on Will and Grace. Of course such searches receive an exaggerated prominence as they are popular searches for a unique term, while there are hundreds of variations of searches for various political issues, with each individual one having a relatively low percentage of hits.
Update: It’s been brought to my attention that The Democratic Daily repeated their attack with a rather hypocritical post in which any sexual reference in a book by a Democratic politician is acceptable as while any sexual reference or photo in my posts on popular culture, the media, or what drives the blogoshere is somehow not acceptable. You cannot have it both ways, but somehow Pamela believes she is the judge of when it is right and when it is not right to report on matters involving sex.
It is also worth repeating that these attacks from The Democratic Daily remain a warped response to my criticism of their defense of anti-Semitic comments. Pamela Leavey never complained about any of these posts in the past, but suddently she thought that raising these personal attacks on me would distract from the support given to anti-Semitism on her blog. As she has no defense for her actions, she is playing the Republican attack game.
It seems that everywher
Everywhere you look, every magazine you read, and every goosip coloum that you look at; Paris Hilton will be somewhere posing for the cameras. The question is, does Paris Hilton look for this media attention or does the media find her in order to get their stories? Yes, she does create scenes and has made a trademark of herself, but without her, the media wouldn’t get half the gossip that they get now.
Forbes has recently declared Paris Hilton as the most everexposed celebrity. She won 70% of the votes, proving that her reality shows, perfumes, handbags, and guest appearances have definitely not gone unnoticed.
Celebrities included in the lists are:
1. Britney Spears
2. Lindsay Lohan
3. Nicole Richie
Even though Hilton has all these things going on in her life that is media worthy, the fact that the public loves seeing her in the press, makes the paparazzi chase her as much as they do.
If the public hated her, didn’t read the articles written about her and didn’t show up by the thousands at shows that she was to guest appear on, then they would continue on to the next big star.
If a celebrity is hot in the public’s eye, then they are hot in the media’s eye as well. If they can get so many stories just from one star, then they will milk that star for as much as they are worth.
Aren’t you ever worried that if you take some provocative pictures of yourself, that they’ll some how get exposed to the world? Well it certainly looks like some celebrities didn’t take that into consideration. They all claim that it was a mistake, and that they didn’t want them to be exposed so that everyone could see them, but this could just be another publicity stunt to get their names in the media.
Here’s some stars that were definitely exposed in the media:
1. Marcia Cross: The Desperate Housewives’ star stated that her husband took the pictures of her naked and that she threw them away in her trash, not expecting anyone to go through it and find them. That may be true, but if you have paparazzi constantly following you, wouldn’t you burn the photos instead of just throwing them away? You would think so.
2. Vanessa Hudgens: The High School Musical star, who is barely old enough for it not to be considered child pornography, claims that the photos were meant for her and her boyfriend, however, they were somehow leaked on the Internet. She was forced to apologize, merely for the fact that she has so many young fans, and even though she seems very embarassed by the situation, she is still constantly in the media and has even more movie roles than she had before.
3. Audrina Patridge: The Hills star stated that the photos, that are now surfacing, were taken when she finished high school and wanted to start a modeling career. She is playing the naive card and says that she trusted people not to expose them, but now that they are exposed, there is talk about her posing for Playboy. Is this a coincidence? Probably not.
What do these three stars all have in common? All their names are still heard in the media and these “scandals” didn’t effect their careers at all, if anything, it brought on new prospects. The truth is that if you are a celebrity, anything media-worthy that you have done, will be exposed, but, in this case, it turns out to have positive consequences.
If you’re a celebrity, there’s one thing that you can be sure of, you can never keep things hidden for very long. You would think that one of the worst things that can happen to ruin your reputation, is if a secret sex tape was exposed to the world. But would a sex tape ruin or promote a celebrity’s status? Well according to stars that had to deal with this in the past, the answer is that any press is good press.
Lindsay Lohan has been the latest celebrity who had a sex tape exposed on the Internet. She claims that she had no idea that she was being filmed while she was was with her ex-boyfriend but is that just an act or did she need a little more lime light than she already has.
Here’s a list of other celebs that made that turned their sex tapes into instant fame for themselves:
1. Paris Hilton: The sex tape was starring her and her then-boyfriend Rick Saloman. Since it’s 2004 release, Paris Hilton has sky-rocketed into fame and even if she will always be known for her role in the film, she will always make headlines.
2. Pamela Anderson: Her and her husband at the time, Tommy Lee, made a sex tape and they have become the legends of celebrity sex tapes. They have become most downloaded sex tape by celebrity couple and they remain being praised for roles in the film.
3. Kim Kardashian: Before the tape of her and her then-boyfriend, Ray J, appeared for the world to see, Kim was unheard of. Even though she was an heir, like her friend, Paris Hilton, she remained unnoticed until her debut in the sex film. Since then, she is all over magazines and even has her own reality show.
From these scenarios, this proves that even pornography can make a celebrity more famous than they already are. If you are talked about, for what ever purpose, you are still getting the attention you want and creating higher celebrity status.
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