Famous for being famous, Kim Kardashian owes her celebrity to her late father’s defense of O.J. Simpson, her leaked sex tape with a B-list singer-song writer, and her photoshopped figure. She heads to the White House Wednesday to discuss prison reform.
Kardashian has been in talks for months with first-son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vanity Fair was the first to report that the socialite will come to the swamp for a meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office. Some saw it as another sign of the end times. Others quickly dismissed it as the new normal. Either way, the celebrity summit isn’t all bad.
Kardashian is an unusual advocate obviously. She and the commander-in-chief would probably be more at ease discussing things they have in common like spray tans and social media empires, reality television, and airhead reputations. And there are others more qualified to discuss things like mandatory minimums, prison overpopulation, and the unfortunate intersection of mental health and incarceration. What she might lack in nuance though, Kardashian makes up for in her understanding of narrative.
Her silicon-injected lips sell her own line of makeup. Her naked selfies nearly break the Internet, bringing millions in ad revenue to her bank account. Her tragically dysfunctional family attracts an average of 2 million viewers every Sunday. That Instagram, modeling, and television empire make Kardashian worth more than $175 million. A ditz? Sure. An idiot? Not at all. An uncaring celebrity? Maybe not.
Kardashian has used her celebrity to elevate the stories of and to seek presidential pardons for two incarcerated women: Alice Marie Johnson, a grandmother sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent first offense, and Cyntoia Brown, a former sex slave facing life in prison for killing her abuser when she was just 16.
Both are clearly emotional examples and both have been catapulted into the national press after Kardashian lent her celebrity to their cause. The two cases aren’t enough to anchor any comprehensive prison reform obviously. With the help of Kardashian though, their stories could chip away a little more of the decade-old gridlock on the issue.
When cults of celebrity become political, substantive issues generally go overlooked. This time it seems different. The meeting is bizarre to be sure, but it’s worth seeing what one reality-television personality says to the reality-television president.
