Tonal Shift
Neil Strauss accused 1999-era Paris Hilton of being racist in his 2011 book titled Everyone Loves You When You're Dead: Journeys Into Fame and Madness. She wanted to sue him over the allegation. According to Neil, she allegedly referred to an actor in Saving Private Ryan (made in 1997 but released in 1998) by saying: “We were making out, but then we went somewhere where it was bright and I saw that he was black and made an excuse and left. I can’t stand black guys. I would never touch one. It’s gross. Does that guy look black to you?”
This refers to Vin Diesel. The eight photos that I have posted in this article make me think that Paris was kidding because she knew that Mr. Strauss would never print that for whatever publication that he was writing for. Sarcasm can take on many forms, even self-deprecating ones told with a straight face. I should note that Neil preluded the section in his book by stating: “Maybe she said what follows for provocation and shock value. Maybe she didn’t. You decide…”
The images that I compiled came from the 2000 to 2009 filter of a photo search on the Getty Images site. I then did a Google search to find more examples of Paris Hilton being discriminatory towards black guys, and there were three people who have corroborated it - Carole Aye Maung, Mark Ebner and Brandon Davis (a former friend). Hypothetically speaking, if she is racist then she was using famous black guys to get attention for herself and elevate her public image. Paris is well known for being a social climber, so she had to start somewhere. Knowing what I know about showbiz and life in general, it is possible for a racist white woman to befriend a black person because they are the means to an end. This is particularly true if the black person is a friend of a popular or photogenic white person. It’s not unusual for a white woman to only befriend a black guy because he’s tall enough to be a bodyguard.
I’m reminded of what Denzel Washington told Xan Brooks in 2013: “I don't have any actor friends. My friends are old friends. One's an ex-music guy, the other's a restaurant owner and the other's an ex-pro ballplayer. Maybe I'm not a butt-kisser, maybe I'm not a schmoozer. I'm not about to go to a party to try to get a job. I don't want movie-star friends. Being African American, there were no big movie stars to hang out with anyway, not when I was starting out, they were just the third guy from the back! For whatever reason, I never befriended any white actors.”
Denzel’s comment raises a lot of questions about the racial divide in acting. White men don’t want to be taken advantage of. For instance, Steve McQueen didn’t want Bruce Lee seeing him as a leg-up for his own acting career despite the fact that Bruce was teaching him how to get his leg up in combat. Same thing with Jewish men since they have a higher standing in Hollywood because of their financial influence. Religion plays a big part in how the various fractions in Hollywood intersect with each other. You have the Jews, the Scientologists and the Christians. The latter are an important demographic when you consider the bible-thumping States of the U.S.
Paris Hilton was to the black rap community what Tawny Kitaen was to the white heavy metal community. Being seen with enough of the right people in a certain scene makes you an icon e.g. MTV’s Riki Rachtman. Photographs are misleading. Tokenism can exist outside of films and television. You can get someone who takes a photo with a black person so as to create an alibi that wards off accusations of racism. Public photos mean jack squat in comparison to domestic photos, and I’m not talking photos of a boudoir nature. The best example that I can give you is the lesbian community in Hollywood. It’s not enough for an actress to be photographed next to another woman (actress or not) even if they hold hands, because women have an affectionate way of bonding with each other even if they are straight. A kiss on the cheek means diddly squat. If two actresses act in the same movie, and they are photographed together at a promotional event then it would be awkward for them to stand next to each other without holding hands or their arms around each other. There are more subtle and varied ways of proving that a woman is into women.
Back to Paris Hilton, the quote that Neil Strauss attributed to her makes no sense. Black men are highly renowned for being well-endowed, and it took a long time for black men in the adult entertainment industry to achieve number one status. By comparison, it would make sense for Paris to be prejudiced about dating a black woman. As a matter of fact, black women have it worse than black men in the dating world. This extends to the world of acting. A white man is more likely to feel threatened by a black man whereas a white woman won’t feel as threatened by a black woman unless they are auditioning for a project that involves singing and dancing. Between nepotism and a casting couch, the former is a more dignified upper hand but you are more likely to find newcomers who are related to famous white people than black ones. A casting couch is only dignified if the relationship already existed before the casting, as opposed to a fleeting liaison. Sex, drugs and keepsake props can be fringe benefits.
Back to the white man, the eighties was the one decade that could be singled out as number one for cocaine. One of the symptoms of heavy use is erectile dysfunction, but another symptom is paranoia. Combine both symptoms and a white man will suspect that his significant other will commit infidelity. Forget Viagra. There is a social contract in Hollywood, and it’s entirely built on two facets - keeping secrets and owing favours. The casting couch is often associated with actresses, but there are many men who have used it. This is especially true in the case of disadvantaged black actors. I’m not saying that all black men used it, but they were more likely to have needed it. Because of black men’s sexual reputation, there were probably women (executives or producers) who wanted to see for themselves. Before the internet, corroboration would come from friends, adult theaters or erotic shops.
If Paris Hilton really doesn’t like black men then she was taking those photos to either aggravate her racist relatives and lovers, or to cause envy in her rivals who wish that they could be photographed with the likes of Sean Combs, Flavor Flav, Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent. Another possibility is that Paris has mixed feelings about black guys. Stand-up comedian Chris Rock is possibly responsible for this. In 1996, he talked about the difference between two kinds of African-Americans: “I love black people, but I hate n!ggers. Can't have sh!t in your house. Why? Because n!ggers will break in your house. You want to save your money? Put it in your books 'cause n!ggers don't read. Just put the money in the books. Sh!t, books are like Kryptonite to a n!gger.”
Chris Rock went into a humorous harangue about this. It’s been said that classism is stronger in the U.K. than it is in the U.S. but the racism in the U.S. is mostly down to classism. You can get a middle-class white woman who is perfectly okay with being a friend or a lover of a black person as long as he is educated and sophisticated. In England, it’s difficult to find a classy black guy. For academic white women who are racially inclined, they would rather date an attractive Middle-Eastern guy who is a doctor, teacher or scientist but they wouldn’t date an equally attractive working-class equivalent who dresses like he belongs in the ghetto. It’s also about how you speak English that guarantees the attraction. Back to America, the class system is best exemplified in Los Angeles. The name is Spanish for a reason. There are many working-class Mexicans. In American TV shows, you will see the trope of a Mexican maid. But there are also Latino gangsters. In L.A. gangland culture, there are Italian mobsters, black hoodlums and the Chinese mafia.
You can see why so many ethnic minority women try to camoflauge their ethnicity by dying their hair blonde or even going as far as wearing blue contact lenses. To be a cosmetician is to be a magician. Make-up and lighting are smoke and mirrors. A woman who is mixed race or Middle-Eastern can hide behind the Portuguese or Italian labels. Theoretically, the Los Angeles Police Department should have focused on singling out Chinese people because of how widespread that the Triads are worldwide. Then there are Chinese people who can kick and use martial arts weapons. Yet it’s black people who are discriminated against. This is because it would be humiliating for whites to be superceded by a race who were made underdogs by them. While there are many white men who are well-endowed, black men have the numero uno reputation because it wasn’t just the length but the width. When you combine penis envy with big penis energy, you get a potent mix that can not only lead to murder but sabotage and slander.
Like how there are celebrities who are closet homosexuals or bisexuals, there are closet interracial fans in the celebrity community because they do not want to be singled out by the police. Like how there are gay celebrities who used beards, a case could be made for white women using racial beards so as to hide their preference for black men. In a world where people can be easily satirized with memes and gifs (thereby making spoof movies redundant), it’s understandable why there would be women who are closeted about being Queens of Spades. In the BBC (big black cock) community, the calling card is the ace of spades tattoo. Not all interracial actresses would be willing to be tattooed this way, so there are other ways of conveying it such as wearing a T-shirt or vest advertising Motorhead’s 1980 hit single.
When Paris Hilton became more famous with her sex tape, it wasn’t an interracial video. Perhaps you could see it as propaganda - a counteractive tool designed to stymie any suspicions of herself serving black masters. This brings to mind two things. Jessie J used the lesbian community to establish herself as a pop artist but she then threw them under the bus by claiming that her sexuality was just a phase. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or gay, no minority likes being used as the stepping stone to appeal to a wider audience. A real launchpad to astronomical success, where a person is rocketed to the stratosphere as they go from being a star to a superstar, is when they keep their core audience and find ways to appeal to every group without coming off as a sell-out. David Bowie was a chameleon. Same thing for Freddie Mercury. Likewise with the living icons, Madonna and David Lee Roth.
There is an elephant in the room that people haven’t thought about, but the elephant has a strong memory even if it is afraid of mice more than men. When the iCloud nude leaks happened, I don’t recall any of the men or women being black. Maybe there could be a black version of the so-called Fappening. It couldn’t be called The Blackening because that’s the title of a 2007 Machine Head album. It’s also the title of a 2022 horror comedy featuring an all-black cast. Back to the iCloud leaks, it was a variant of the casting couch in that there were presumably so many horny producers whose imaginations were fueled by the combination of what they saw and the fire that they had felt in their loins. When the Me Too movement transpired in 2017, the emphasis was on sexual offenders and grievous bodily harmers, but not racists. A verbal moment of sexual harassment is taken more seriously than a racial epitphet, but most people remember Mel Gibson’s downfall because of his racist slurs than the death threat that he had made towards his Russian girlfriend. His downfall should have made for a major water cooler moment that spilled into a tsunami of revelations, but it’s true what they say - When you point your finger at someone else, three fingers point back at you.
It’s especially difficult to expose racists when they said something back when they were young but not anymore. It doesn’t mean that they genuinely matured, just that they learned to keep it to themselves. Back to Chris Rock, his differentiation between the two conflicting classes of black people might explain why Mel Gibson drunkenly warned his girlfriend about being raped by black thugs. I won’t say most, but many people thought that Mel was racist just like many people defended him by saying that he couldn’t be racist if he worked with Danny Glover (who still stood by him). Don’t forget that Chris Rock worked with both men on Lethal Weapon 4 (1998). The truth comes out when drunk, and maybe Paris Hilton’s true feelings for black men would come out when drunk. But then you have to draw the line between men taking advantage of drunk women and men taking advantage of men who can only come out of the closet when drunk. If a man is inebriated enough that he’s not allowed to drive then he’s probably regarded as too inebriated to be seen as abusing a drunken woman’s consent.
In Hollywood, the social contract binds those who are employed and those who retire. Favours are pulled to chase the flavour of a month. Whenever you read stories about productions, there are countless anecdotes that you will never learn because it would mean exposing someone who’s too powerful or too close. It’s like trying to solve a case in federal crime where the exposure of one person would lead to the destruction of a pyramid. One of the creators of the sitcom Friends had lamented, way too long after the fact, that they should have been more inclusive with the casting. This is a tad disingenuous given that the NBC series had what I like to call strategically placed black extras. If you observe the blocking of many shots, the way that the black extras were positioned was not coincidental. There was clearly a design to subliminally communicate to the audience: “See? We’re not racist. Look, black people!”
This leads to the topic of who’s doing who a favour when it comes to casting. If you make a black production with no whites, it’s labelled niche. If you only have a few whites, then it’s commercial tokenism rather than political tokenism. If you make it 50/50, there’s the issue of who gets the most screen-time. If you’re telling a story where black people have no black character traits then you’re accused of hiding black history, but it’s not whitewashing if you want to sell a black actor as someone who can play a role that doesn’t have a racially motivated identity e.g. Blair Underwood could have played Tom Cruise’s role in Top Gun (1986). Also, Cuba Gooding Jr. could have played Cruise’s role in A Few Good Men (1992). How else can casting directors think outside the box?
This year will mark the tenth anniversary of a TV series called The Flash. Like many TV shows, cheaper cameras were used for brief shots. Sometimes these shots were for action or stunts, but I noticed that brief shots featuring black actors would use these cheap cameras where the frames-per-second motion rate is akin to watching something shot on digital video. The texture of the image is a dead giveaway as well. It’s like watching an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles. Anyway, ego plays such a big part in Hollywood interactions that people can’t tell the difference between someone who is polite and someone who is timid. Exposing racists in Hollywood would potentially mean exposing the people who they are in cahoots with. Let’s not forget that the Los Angeles Police Department often work on productions as advisors or extras. They also lend cars and equipment.
The L.A.P.D. are so powerful that it’s understandable why film studios would often rather shoot on their backlots than try to get permits. Permissions can often come with conditions which, when cleverly worded, avoid accusations of blackmail. It’s because of the persuasive power of the L.A.P.D. that Hollywood may have somewhat overcompensated in giving ethnic minorities their time to shine. It’s not enough to have gender-reversed gimmicks but even race-reversed ones too. When Rodney King was unfairly beaten, O.J. Simpson was unfairly exonerated. George Floyd was killed by police brutality, then Hollywood got too carried away with woke tokenism. Don’t get me started on that black square post trend on Instagram. Overcompensation exists in that middle ground between killing someone with kindness, and letting evil win by doing nothing. Not all cops are b@st@rds, and not all black lives matter.
When Steven Spielberg adapted The Color Purple in the mid-eighties, he was definitely overcompensating for how he never had black leads or black supporting players. When Halle Berry was cast opposite Kurt Russell in Executive Decision (1996), it was justice for how she was told that it wouldn’t make sense for a black woman to be a park ranger in John Woo’s Broken Arrow (1996). The irony is that the star of the film, John Travolta, had previously starred in a film about racism - White Man’s Burden (1995). Make no mistake about it, the ‘80s had the top three films where ethnic minority casting didn’t feel like stunt casting. Beverly Hills Cop (1984) was initially intended for Mickey Rourke before Sylvester Stallone got rejected in favour of Eddie Murphy. While he may have seemed destined to play the character, the titular protagonist could easily have been played by Kurt Russell, Jeff Bridges, Tom Selleck or even Billy Crystal (who was riding high at that time).
The success of The Cosby Show earlier in that year paved the way for Lethal Weapon (1987). Danny Glover played the role of a middle-class family man who happens to be a detective whereas Mel Gibson played the impoverished Vietnam War veteran who lives in a trailer. It would have been easy for the ethnicities to have been switched, perhaps with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy essentially replaying their mismatched duo in 48 Hrs. (1982). As politically incorrect as this earlier film was, it was redeemed by the release of Flashdance in 1983. Filmed in 1982, it starred an actress who is half black but could have passed as a Latina - Jennifer Beals. She went through the same rigmarole as other half-caste people i.e. not black nor white enough. Jennifer bested Demi Moore at the casting stage because of a voting session that was attended by the blue collar workers of the Paramount film studio.
If you want to learn more about black celebrities in Hollywood, the go-to forum is Lipstick Alley. This does for blacks what The L Chat does for lesbians. Back to Paris Hilton, that black guy with her in the cover of this article was not Denzel Washington. That was Fonzworth Bentley. Having said that, Denzel told Xan Brooks for The Guardian: “What’s a celebrity anyway? Paris Hilton’s a celebrity. I’m just a working actor.”