blogging : la culte du populaire : irony lost : m.m. in the v.v.

It was just the other night that I was commenting to The Roomie, re: Paris Hilton, All Those Other Dumb Rich Bitches, And Why We Care, "I just don't get it."

But I realized that it's not that I don't get it, it's that I can't. Or I won't. Either way, I don't have to, because Michael Musto has fervidly enunciated it for me:

"With the communications explosion bringing savvy to every household, you can't necessarily feel smarter than the person next to you, but you can enjoy intellectual superiority to a bevy of bimbos and himbos with dark roots instead of gray matter... Watching these entertaining dull tools act out in relation to their low self-esteem has become a sadistic feel-good experience that has us cheering on the golden-chunked desperation while gleefully handing out more Clairol."

Village Voice. "The Death of the Dumb Blonde." http://villagevoice.com/nyclife/0545,musto,69773,15.html (November 8, 2005)

Relatedly, speaking of the merciful providence of witty observation and resigned disgust both, Cintra Wilson's A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-examined as a Grotesque Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations is a very, very, very good read.