Before I write this, I want to say that I totally read Perez Hilton's blog. Almost daily. That being said, Perez Hilton is a horrible, horrible person, and as a I have been a regular reader for years, I should know.
Firstly, he is horribly misogynistic (or at least his ghostwriter is). He really hates women. If you look at any of his posts you can see this strange disrespect in his posts. He tears women young and old apart like a bunch of 8 year olds tear into a pepperoni pizza. His direct victims are often young girls without fully developed coping mechanisms. He honestly has no problem calling 15 year old girls fat ugly sluts. And when these vulnerable teens turn into troubled young women, he has no problem calling them fat ugly drug addicted crazy has-been sluts. And his treatment of older women is no better, even the slightest bit of aging or the tiniest smidgen of sexual freedom is treated by him as a curse on humanity. I'm not necessarily defending the actions of every woman he ridicules, but they certainly don't deserve to be branded with the infamous white semen drops.
In addition to his treatment of women, his treatment of homosexuals lacks a certain amount of compassion one would expect from an openly gay man. Certainly, he does his part to promote gay rights, but for every step forward he takes, he takes a huge leap backward with his treatment of gays in the media. Believe me, as a long time reader of Perez Hilton's blog, I can tell you that calling Will.I.Am a f-word is definitely not the first homophobic act Hilton has ever committed (for example, he likes to claim that certain male stars like Zac Efron have "gay face," and in this recent post he asks if a man with a half buttoned teal shirt is "gay or European"). Not only does he feel the need to out those who may just be waiting for the right time to do so, he also feels the need to ridicule certain gay men and women who don't meet his standards, for example posting pictures from Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black's sex tape and then basically ridiculing him only months after praising him for his Oscar win.
But the real victims of Perez Hilton are not Miley Cyrus, Denise Richards or Lance Bass, it's the non-famous women and men, both gay and straight. Perez Hilton sends messages that consistently promote gender stereotypes. I'm not saying that Perez Hilton should send better messages because as a gay man he should represent all minorities and should fight for everyone's civil rights and equality. I'm saying he should send better messages because as a human being he should fight for everyone's equality. He pretends to want equality for everyone, but he is willing to treat certain people as less equal than others by turning them into cartoonish figures to be ridiculed for their inability to be completely perfect. By taking someone like Lindsay Lohan and dehumanizing her to such a point where it's OK to point and laugh at her when she's obviously intoxicated and passed out in the front of her friend's car he dehumanizes everyone who's ever been so drunk they've done something stupid in public. When he forces someone like T.R. Knight or Neil Patrick Harris to come out of the closet before they're ready, or alleges that a celebrity is possibly gay even though he or she may actually not be, he confuses teenagers more than they are already confused about their own sexuality and he takes away the humanity of these poor people by making a very important decision for them.
Why do people stand for this? Because Perez Hilton is nothing new. Gossip by nature is about establishing gender roles and social norms. All Perez Hilton is doing is regurgitating every social norm that has been drilled into him throughout his life. After all, he is just a person like everyone else, and there are very few who are completely impenetrable by the 1950s stereotypes of the gentile lady, the manly man, the butch lesbian and the flamboyant gay man. This is why so many people read his blog in the first place, the nastiness is so familiar and common place to all of us. Many people are thinking the horrible things he says, from "Lindsay Lohan is a whore" to "Zac Efron has gay face." This is why TMZ and VH1's Celebreality shows are so popular, we all like to drag others down to make ourselves feel better. His view points are extremely conservative, but they are shown in such a vulgar way they are mistaken for liberal. In fact, if he wasn't gay, Perez Hilton might have become the biggest conservative pundit since Rush Limbaugh.
So, who is really to blame for Perez Hilton, Mario Lavandeira, or society? Really, they both are. Hilton was indoctrinated with these values as a young child, most likely, but he makes no attempt to change and probably has no ability to recognize the ideas of gender roles and sexual norms behind his words. He may very well believe himself to be a very liberal, progressive and unprejudiced young man, but he has many miles to go before his vision of himself can actually be realized. Even if the posts on perezhilton.com don't come from him, he still puts his name on and takes credit for them, which is a stamp of approval if I've ever seen one. If he really wants to be seen as an equal to others despite gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity or creed, then perhaps he should treat people the way he wants to be treated. I know that's a very kindergarten teacher thing to say, but it's the level of maturity that such a person should be handled with.
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