I admit it: I'm a celebrity gossip fanatic. I check my gossip site several times a day and sneer mightily when yet another celebrity has made a poor choice that just happened to get picked up on camera.
But the whole thing with the wild girls -- Paris Hilton, in jail for a DUI; Nicole Richie, about to go to trial for a DUI, supposedly pregnant with a pop star's baby (reminds you of "Chicago," doesn't it?), past issues with drug use, current rumors of drug use; Lindsey Lohan, two-time rehab attendee; Britney Spears, etc, etc -- kind of pisses me off. Because I go out and do stupid things sometimes too: I get drunk and make a fool of myself, I once cut all my hair off in a moment of insanity, I drive when I shouldn't, and, well, I don't have a designer drug issue, but the aforementioned actions do not make for a very Good Girl.
I can't help but wonder: where are the boys in these front-page events? Do they have better publicists, or is the public just not as interested when boys get drunk? Is it because we expect them to? Are we more forgiving because, well, boys will be boys but girls have to be ladies...still? These girls are expected to be role models--does anyone ask, say, Justin Timberlake, who certainly does his share of bedding women and tearing off their clothes in public, what message he's sending to young boys? Do boys not need role models because they are perfect coming out of the womb? I mean, come on: there are boys out there driving wasted, smoking pot in public, and sleeping around too, and goddammit, I want to hear about it! I want to up my self-esteem after reading something slanderous about Adam Brody, just as I smile proudly that I'm not the one spending 23 days in jail for driving with a suspended license. That's why we love celebrity gossip, isn't it? They get to publicly make the mistakes we've all made, and we get to feel better about ourselves that it wasn't us. Let's even out the double standard, one drunken mishap at a time.