The economy’s cratering, our nation is hopelessly embroiled in the world’s messier hot spots and the politicians have forsaken us.
Grab the remote, then, and watch the people who are rich and somebody’s idea of fabulous drench themselves in a slew of product placements, such as the $20,000 Vera Wang gown in which a certain bride may have parachuted into Santa Barbara.
I'm speaking, of course, of the Kardashian wedding, filmed in all its glory to ensure the couple’s $15 million payday from the E! Network, for a special to be entitled "Kim’s Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event." Not to mention the $2.5 milion People Magazine paid for the photo rights, plus a registry posted online for the struggling young lovebirds.
Also read: Kim Kardashian's Wedding Paid for Itself — and Then Some
But here’s the question:
Have we heard a single word about any of this money going to charity?
You may recall how Elizabeth Taylor sold off her wedding photography for a million that went to AIDS research. Or how Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones handled the media frenzy around their 2000 wedding at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel.
They sold the rights for 2 million pounds sterling to Hello! Magazine — which quickly made out a check to a charitable foundation established in the name of their newborn son Dylan.
Kim and Kris have — get this — a second wedding celebration on the horizon, back east on Aug. 31.
You or I could drink a big bucket of greed hormone and flop around restlessly all night without cooking that up.
No, it takes greatness.
Subtract the estimated tab of $10 million to actually stage the Kardashian nupitals and that leaves plenty around for Kim and Kris (a journeyman but highly-paid NBA rebounding specialist for the New Jersey Nets) to dole some out, wouldn’t you think?
By the way, if the Kardashian accountants have already quietly mailed a check to some charity we haven’t heard about, consider yourselves apologized to.
In the past, Kim has talked about giving a 10th of her yearly income to the LifeChange Community Church in Calabasas, and brava to that.
Appropriately enough, the featured item on the church’s website today was a reprinted article entitled: “Loss and Scandal Have Led Pastor to Higher Spiritual Plain."
We reckon that meant spiritual plane, but in any event the gist is this: He departed from his previous congregation due to a 2007 extramarital affair. He also went into a 12-step program.
Reality producers, do we have to send you a treatment? Better get on this.
We won’t be watching.
(Photos of cake and plate from E! Online)