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For the first time, when I saw Paris Hilton crying in the back of the police car, I felt compassion for her. Not because I believe she doesn't deserve her sentence - I think she does - but because I finally saw the naked emperor for who he is:
At the bottom of all the hype - the facade that Paris and her publicity machine have built up over the past few years - lies a naive girl who has no sense of herself outside the image she has had reflected back to her by her countless yes-men, the media, and the public.
She's built her identity on a foundation of sand, and when she invited real, gritty life into her experience by breaking the law, nothing that she had relied on in the past could help her.
I also realised that my own outrage about Paris's antics has been fuelled by that part of me that is also attention-seeking, frivolous, lacking responsibility, lacking a sense of self. I think for many of us, Paris has simply been a very effective mirror for all of our own shadow traits that we have conveniently projected on to her. In that way, she's done me a great service; and as a result, much of my anger has given way to something akin to a neutral sympathy for her. Perhaps this experience will help her rebuild her sense of self on more solid ground. Perhaps not.
