Jezebel: driven crazy

Why Celebrities Can't Drive

Intern Katy — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:40:00 EST

Last night Matt Dillon was arrested traveling 106 mph in Vermont, and this morning Charles Barkley was arrested on suspicion of DUI. Yesterday, Slate asked the inevitable question: why are so many celebrities bad drivers?

Most of us can probably list at least a few celebrity arrests. If you don’t remember Paris Hilton’s DUI, you might still have heard about Britney’s driving-with-a-baby scandal. It seems like every time a celebrity gets behind the wheel, it makes national news. But, Slate argues, this does not make celebrities bad drivers. They are just overexposed and driving in more dangerous conditions than the rest of us — due to the paparazzi and all. The good news: we don’t care! Bad behavior in cars is usually viewed as a “folk crime,” so even though it may be dangerous to drive after a few drinks, enough people have done it that it no longer seems to count as “real crime.” Celebrities: they’re just like us!

Oops! She Crashed It Again [Slate]

Wins & Losses

Dodai — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:45:00 EDT

A reader tipped us off to this post on Fox Sports regarding media coverage of Danica Patrick. Ian O'Connor writes: "Danica Patrick will not change the world by winning the Indy 500. She will change it by becoming an agent of reform, by using her victory to convince men to start measuring a woman by her skill instead of her bra size." He posits that Patrick is part of the problem, since she agrees to do ads like the GoDaddy.com commercial in which she unzips her racing suit as wind blows in her hair. O'Connor continues: "She courts the kind of attention that inspires tabloid headlines the likes of, 'She'll Start Your Engine' and 'Va-Va-Vroom.' It's not necessary. It really isn't. Patrick can't do anything about her good looks, other than enjoy them. But that doesn't mean she has to devalue her breathless talent as a race car driver by playing along every time a publicity rep asks her to slip into something far more comfortable than her helmet and suit." [Fox Sports]

Dear Women: Shun Dudes With Sports Cars & Save The World

dodai — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:30:00 EST

At a UN conference on global warming in Bali last week, a young woman asked Sir David King, the UK's chief scientific advisor, what she could do to stop global warming, reports Wired. "I told her stop admiring young men in Ferraris," King says. And while his comment sounds sexist and kind of crazy, doesn't he make a valid point? A chemist at the University of Cambridge, King believes that there's only so much governments can do to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. "What I was saying is you have got to admire people who are conserving energy and not those willfully using it," he explains. Meanwhile, people who have Ferraris are pissed. Peter Everingham, secretary of the Ferrari Owners Club, says that "nearly 90%" of Ferrari owners are married and "not looking to impress women."

Haha, not even their wives? Anyway, the real issue here is the culture we're living in: Not all women think guys with gas-guzzling sports cars are hot, but in the United States, do we take the global-warming issue personally enough?

In a recent issue of BusinessWeek, senior correspondent David Kiley writes:

Ford and Chrysler do not make a single vehicle for the U.S. that tops 35 mpg. But two things to keep in perspective about this new fuel-economy standard: The European vehicle fleet today already achieves more than 40 mpg. Remember the words of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when France and Germany would not assist in the Iraq War? He called those countries "Old Europe." Which part of the world looks old now?

So while King shouldn't jokingly blame women for men who buy Ferraris, aren't we all responsible for the cultural shift needed to reduce emissions? Ten or fifteen years ago, only hippie-types were into organic food. Now organic everything is totally common and Whole Foods Market is fetishized. There's buzz around hybrids, but imagine if green, fuel-efficient cars had major desirability and cachet? Who has the power to make them seem hip, alluring, sexy? Hip-hop videos? Teenagers? Women? And as for King, his thinking that men buy Ferraris because women think they're sexy — is that an insult to women? Or to men?

Women Who Find Ferrari Drivers Sexy Contribute to Global Warming? [Wired]
Related: Energy Bill Has Only Half a Tank [BusinessWeek]
Sports Cars More Dangerous Than SUVs [New Scientist]