Not a moment too soon, in my view, Paris Hilton is going to Harvard. She has been awarded the title of Woman of the Year by the university's satirical magazine, The Harvard Lampoon, and has agreed to collect her prize. Considering her last public appearance on stage - earlier this week, she got hold of the microphone at an expensive stateside fleshpot and said something, which I've been asked to paraphrase for the benefit of LiS's more sensitive readers, and boils down to: 'I want to put it in my mouth, copulate with it, put it in my mouth in a different manner. I want to engage in fornication with you all', to a rapidly diminishing crowd - it will be interesting to see how she goes down. (Sorry).
For my money, she'll do brilliantly. She'll be silly enough to reaffirm her audience's prejudices and she'll come up with a couple of phrases for the next day's papers.
The real point, of course, is that Paris is, as ever, displaying clever business sense here. She might get incredibly off her face every now and then and get reported to have said something like I've just quoted her as having said; but the rest of the time she's working away night and day on being Paris.
It's no coincidence that this visit to Harvard, which is already grabbing headlines around the world, just happens to coincide with the launch of her new cinema 'comedy'. Remember those serious actors, who complain about having promotional tours written into their contracts? For Paris, they're a joy. Indeed, they're close on the point of doing a movie. It's all to make Paris bigger.
It also suggests that the Harvard Lampoon, which proudly boasts to be the world's oldest satirical magazine, is no less adept at a bit of media manipulation than, for example, Vanity Fair or GQ, who equally understand the importance in terms of profile of getting big names to show up for their awards ceremonies. The Harvard Lampoon might like to suggest it is 'lampooning' Paris by awarding her this gong. But by choosing someone with a film to promote, they were helping to secure her attendance. And that has made people think: gosh, this mag must have clout, while being able to laugh at Paris at the same time.
All the same - other suggesions of Woman of the Year nominations welcome.
