Paris Hilton Pictures & Video

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie take quite a bit of criticism, but if we think about it, maybe they more than likely are smarter, better PR planners, and better humored than we give them credit for.

Paris Hilton is rich, appalling rich.  So rich she can dress her dog in jewels we could live a year on were we to hawk them.  So rich she can draw the disgust of viewers worldwide, keeping them hooked to her spending habits alone.

Paris Hilton is also beautiful.  If you analyze her latest ad for Paris Hilton cologne, for instance, and if you forgivingly skip over her eyes being too close together and her head being a tad misshapen—according to the socio-anthropologists who identify the most mateable characteristics are found in symmetry and the like—you will note her lithe length and powder-silk skin, combined with her fantastic choice of dress (a powder blue tango-style number) most appealing.

Nicole Richie is also wealthy, having before her the legacy of a legendary (adoptive) father, Lionel Richie, of Commodores longstanding fame and having her own resources, such as being spokesperson for Bongo Jeans and appearing on such popular shows as Mad TV.

Nicole Richie is also gorgeous: she can appear alabaster pristine or with an Egyptian sheen.  She walks in confidence, tilting and swishing where necessary, and she has eyes that can penetrate or playfully tease, depending upon her mood—and mindset (which is, again, quite sharp).

She also has knowing eyes.  Smart-alecky and rebellious, Richie reveals with her visage an impish, tongue-in-cheek attitude and a trouble-making approach.  Nicole Richie is seemingly the more dimensional personality, the instigator, the attendant to the wit.

Maybe the two are simply spoiled brats with way too much money and time to play with that money, but more, there is some seeming understanding that giving people what they don't know they want is the key to staying sane and alive in the belly of the beast that is Hollywood. 

The series, "The Simple Life," exposed this notion, when the two socialites are sent across country (in vehicles they can't operate well or on buses they have no business needing to ride) to live temporarily with excited but unsuspecting families and to work for simple, undeserving of their antics employers.

The brats tore up meat-packing plants, destroyed bakeries, crashed car wash customers' cars, spent farmer's finances on small-town grocery store knick knacks, and flirted their way in and out of men's—and women's—lives.  They made eyes at virgin boys, rolled eyes at honest jobs, and showed that devil-may-care in their eyes when scampishness offered more fun than stuffing sausages or swilling pigs. 

Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie were filmed falling off horses, fu—ing up french fries, and fussing with family values.  They punked out little kid's hair, turned out little girls' wardrobes, and pranked on the most withdrawn, anal retentive, and religious of sorts.  And because the premise of the show required they have none of their usual funds, all along the way they flirted men at gas stations out of money, men at fast food restaurants out of dough, men on the streets out of cash.

Their beauty and status worked in their favor, and they knew it.  They had to.  But their humanity came through all the foibles and furs, too.  At the end of a stay at a family's ranch, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton would send the neglected wife and stifled husband out and set up a romantic affair of roses and candles and poetry and wine.  They would feign illness so a family would go on an outing without them, and when the family returned would share their having turned a walk-in closet into a boys bedroom for the little one who had been sleeping on the floor in the hall.

And at the series finale, live on a set/stage in Hollywood, Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton would reunite with a favorite (and especially abused) family, one who, for example, had had their truck beat on and temporarily stolen and made fun of by the better-thans.  And they would set up a "we have a token of appreciation" for you scenario, presenting the needful family with a brand new truck.

Evidently, the "cast" of "The Simple Life" tore up towns along the way.  They tear up towns across the globe, too.  And while we bitch or laugh about their seemingly addle-brained antics, I suspect they knowingly look at each other, nod, and take the proceeds on a simple four- or five-thousand dollar lunchtime shopping spree for a few dozen pairs of shoes.

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