Among the numerous tropes brandished for the sake of “comedy” in Cooking With Paris, the most consistently used one is of Paris Hilton at the grocery store dressed to the nines at the beginning of each episode. It all starts with a bubblegum pink number befitting of Barbie or 80s-era Ivana Trump. As she imagines herself in this 80s world complete with a soundtrack to match, her reverie is interrupted by the broken illusion of one of her crew members fanning her from behind-the-scenes. Subsequently plopping many boxes of cereal into her cart, the camera cuts to her scurrying down the refrigerator aisle like she’s all alone in the joint. Which is just how any Stepford wife would shop, minus the part where they might get too lively with their movements.
Unlike Paris, a Stepford wife might not deign to converse with anyone in the store who wasn’t a wife themselves, least of all the invisible “worker fairies” (invisible to the wives, anyway). Paris’ recipes also seem to call for ingredients that harken back to a Stepford era (which itself wanted to recreate the “utopia”—for men—of the 1950s). Case in point, her vacantly reciting, “Eggs, brioche, bacon.” Grabbing far too many packages of the latter to justify not giving herself or Kim Kardashian a heart attack (which perhaps just proves that celebrities only pretend to eat when they’re on camera).
Even at La Princesita Tortilleria, where the spatial confines are not quite enough to provide for her usual June Cleaver in couture grandiosity, Hilton manages to bring an air of the Stepford wife to the joint as she carries her basket around and absently asks what a “toh-mah-till-ee-oh” is. Here one tends to believe that even Nicole Kidman could manage to pronounce the word with more success, despite WASPs malfunctioning whenever they have to say an “ethnic” word.
In the following episode, we begin this time at Lassens Natural Food and Vitamins so that Paris might get the “vegan ingredients” necessary to make burgers, fries and a milkshake (the keyword of the entire enterprise—in case you didn’t get it yet—being “50s”) for Nikki Glaser. Walking down the aisle like it’s her own personal catwalk, the scene then cuts to her “normally” shopping for vegan milk and walnut milk. Pretending to stumble through the aisles like she can’t manage in her heels, Hilton caters to the ultimate male fantasy of being a helpless, barely functional woman who even struggles with basic tasks like grocery shopping. It remains the ultimate wet dream for many men, particularly of the sort she’s engaged to. After all, new generations of Stepford folk aren’t made, they’re born—to rich people.
The “Italian Night With Demi Lovato” episode finds Paris at arguably her most Stepford with a smoke-filled intro that features her in a white dress of the pristine variety—a shade of whiteness that only a Stepford wife could sustain without soiling as a result of her robotic movements. This illusion of perfection is dispelled quickly, however, when Paris engages in such “plebeian” behavior as asking for more cheese on her pizza. Just one of many cringeworthy moments of the (not so) Italian episode.
Deviating slightly from the usual grocery store opening in “Get Over It Holiday Feast With Lele Pons,” Hilton rolls up to the Farmer’s Market to pick up a turkey she pre-ordered (because, again, she likes to promote a 50s-era ideal of Americana, sort of like Lana Del Rey). Paris then finds herself in a more engaging horror movie concept than House of Wax. For she starts to imagine all the poultry around her clucking and gobbling in anger over her profligacy. Which is highly likely.
By the final episode, it’s back to more Stepford decadence as usual—except this time under the guise of an Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s ensemble. As the instrumental to “Moon River” plays in yet another daydreamy sequence, Paris’ fantasy is interrupted when she drops a jar and comments, “Oops, sorry. These look like rocks.” Oh, how the public space can be such a burden for the rich with their head in the clouds wanting only to stay there. She then lists off what she’ll need: “truffles, gold flakes, butter.” All to make the fixings of a steak dinner for her family as though, you guessed it, we’re in 1955 or Stepford, Connecticut.
Thus, whether Paris intended to or not, she makes an unwitting ad to many women on how to bring “Stepford wife chic” into the present. That is, if they have the financial means to do so. Otherwise, this feels like one elaborate undercover porno-type gift to her fiancé, Carter Reum, to show him what married life will be like with her subservient know-how.
