On Subtexts

I have tried to avoid hearing and seeing and reading so much about Michael Jackson but it's pretty much impossible if one is expected to follow politics. So I have learned more about MJ than I ever wanted to know, and one of those things I learned is that he is treated as an individual. Sometimes an aberrant individual, true, but not as a representative of either his racial or his gender group.

That could be progress. But is the same true of famous women with odd private lives? I don't think so. Lots of people take out their anger at women by focusing on Paris Hilton or Sarah Palin or Britney Spears. I really think so, based on what I see on the Internet. But feel free to persuade me otherwise.