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Other Voices
"I used to act dumb," Paris told Barbara Walters in a telephone interview from jail. "It was an act. That act is no longer cute." Being the award-winning journalist that I am, this news immediately brought a couple of important questions to my mind. First, she was, like, totally acting? Forget Academy Awards voting next spring, ladies and gentlemen. Just give the Best Actress Oscar to Paris right now. Meryl Streep can't act that convincingly. This is a woman who is famous mostly because an ex-boyfriend posted a video on the Internet of the two of them having sex. During the first season of her reality TV show, she wondered out loud if Wal- Mart sells walls. In a 2005 legal deposition, she couldn't remember the last name of one of her friends. "It's, like, a weird Greek name. Like Douglas," she said. But rest easy, America. It's all an act. While enduring her unfortunate incarceration at the hands of the California judicial system, she's reportedly reading not the latest issue of Cosmo, but The Wall Street Journal. What's next? You don't suppose another blonde Mensa member, Jessica Simpson, is going to admit she was acting when she infamously asked if the Chicken of The Sea she was eating was chicken or tuna? The second thing that comes to my mind is, if Paris really is acting, why do she and so many other young girls feel the need to pretend they are dumb? Do guys really prefer a woman who has no active brain cells? I can't fathom that's true. I enjoy looking at beautiful women as much as the next red-blooded male. But I can only look for so long. I need someone who is able to carry on a conversation - and I mean one about more than lipstick and shoes. What does it say about our society when the celebrities our young people look up to aspire to be dumb? What's wrong with aspiring to be intelligent? I knew a student at the college where I used to work who was a huge Jessica Simpson fan. This student was pretty, intelligent and fun. "Why do you like her so much," I often asked. "She's dumb as a box of rocks." "That's just an act," the student told me. "Hogwash," I told her. I don't believe guys look at girls like Paris and Jessica because they are dumb. Guys look at them because they consider them beautiful. Whether she acts dumb or acts smart, no one would pay attention to Paris for five minutes if she were as ugly as a bowling shoe. But there is no question that Paris has a huge following. Ratings spiked on the cable news channels during the "she's in jail, she's out of jail, she's back in again" saga. Such was the coverage that the networks barely had time to report that Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was being replaced, a far more important story than whether another Hollywood celebrity was headed to the slammer. I hope we're not raising a generation of children who think it's only important to look hot and be dumb at all costs. Let's push them instead to aspire for brains. I'm the first to admit that there are a great many things I'm dumb about. But I never want to appear dumb. I do my best to seem like I have a functioning brain. Friends will say to me occasionally, "Stop playing dumb." "I'm not playing dumb," I always tell them. "I am dumb. Most of the time, I'm playing smart." Maybe Paris will prove me wrong. Maybe she is just acting dumb. Maybe when she's sprung from the L.A. jail, she'll become one of the great minds of the 21st century. But somehow I doubt it. Forrest Gump's mama always said, "Stupid is as stupid does," and Paris has a track record that removes any doubts about whether she is, in reality, a rocket scientist. In fact, Paris is the very definition for a saying I saw recently. "Everyone has the right to be stupid. Some just abuse the privilege."
Mitch Clarke is executive editor of The Times. He can be reached at (770) 718- 3403 or mclarke@gaines villetimes.com. His column appears Sundays.
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