"At the core, it's what in a less polite era we would have called a freak show," said Robert J. Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. "If she lived the lifestyle of Tom Hanks, we would no longer pay attention. But she keeps delivering. It's comic relief, but it's complicated comic relief."

*****

War continues to rage in Iraq. The immigration bill is in shambles. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is being replaced. But in the midst of all this and other important world activity, we are fixated on the relatively meaningless fate of an heiress serving a 45-day jail sentence for a parole violation. Probably because it is relatively meaningless.

"She is one-dimensional in many respects," said Nancy Snow, associate professor of communications and journalism at Cal State Fullerton. "The war, homeland security, there is so much to those issues, you have to put it all in context, understand who the players are. With Paris, you don't have to exert much mental energy. It's brain candy."