Lara Bingle v Paris Hilton

In case you have been living under a rock for the past week, the front-page news in every Australian media outlet has been the ‘tragic’ split between Lara Bingle and Australian cricketer Michael Clarke.

For the non-Australian readers out there, Lara can be loosely defined as Australia’s answer to Paris Hilton. She’s a 22-year old peroxidy thing of average looks and an IQ significantly less than her bra size. Nevertheless, despite a failed appearance in Australia’s worst tourism campaign, a poor-quality nude photo shoot and a string of dubious illicit encounters with male celebrities, Lara seemed to have emerged unscathed after duping our cricketing captain-in-waiting into proposing to her – complete with a $200,000 engagement ring, and an Aston Martin worth a little more to seal the deal. Y

ou may be getting the impression that I don’t like her very much. Unbiased journalism has never really been my style.

Well, the marriage is now off and the couple have split, following revelations that Lara not only knowingly slept with married footballer Brendan Fevola (who, despite his character flaws, I still hope will lead the Lions to victory this year…), but subsequently sold her story to one of those hairdressing-salon mags for another $200K.

The story is pretty well fleshed out by now, and you can google around if you want a fuller account. But the whole mess, and the aforementioned comparison with Ms Hilton, led me to wonder who would win a morality competition between Lara and Paris.

You see, I’ve always accepted, if not quite respected, Paris’ career choices. She’s obviously a girl who has lucked out in pretty much every area besides patriarchal finance. With no talents, intelligence or redeeming features to speak of, Paris has managed to not only command seven-figure appearance fees to any function, but also star in a movie (without being able to act), record a top-40 selling album (without being able to sing), and start a surprisingly successful fragrance and fashion label (without smelling or looking good).

Moral judgment aside, there’s no denying Paris has made the best of what she’s got – or, rather, lacks. It’s almost admirable – although, of course, her net addition to social welfare is practically zero.

Lara Bingle is similar in a lot of ways. Devoid of talent and having lucked out in the smarts stakes, she’s certainly also made the best of what she lacks – how many people can claim to drive an Aston Martin, despite being unable to read the speedometer? On the surface, then, the two silicon starlets are directly comparable, right?

There’s just one factor where our Lara lucks out, and herein lays my reasons for bias. While Paris has drunk, screwed and giggled her way to success, she’s never knowingly hurt someone along the way. All right, there were some reports that Mark “The Poo” Philippoussis was heartbroken after their relationship ended, but after what he did to our Delta, I’m not entirely convinced he has a heart. Paris has, against all the odds, made her way to the top, and left only a few broken bottles and used hair straighteners by way of damage.

Lara used Michael Clarke to her own advantage from start to finish, manipulating their involuntary celebrity power to her own end. She had every opportunity to repair their relationship after the infamous ‘shower photo’ came out (after all, it’s been around for years), but instead Lara chose the path of financial gain… and the latest reports suggest she’s going to continue along this track as the ex-couple finds itself with a court date.

My verdict? Hilton 1; Bingle 0.

Of course, having never met either lass (or Clarke, for that matter), I’m knowingly extrapolating my entire argument from flimsy A3-sized media reports. I’m gleefully ripping in to the largely unknown characters of real people who have been unwittingly thrust into the celebrity limelight, their private lives on display for all to criticise and critique as we see fit.

But gosh, if we can’t all do that, what are we all supposed to do with our time? Go back to talking about climate change?