When Crime is Glamorized……..

What’s the top fashion accessory of the season? What little trinket is being sported by A-list Hollywood celebs (not to mention the wannabes)? An ankle monitor of course.

For the uninitiated, an ankle monitor( also known as SCRAM or Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor) is a device that’s strapped to a person’s ankle to monitor the alcohol content in his/her body. The device reads the alcohol content by monitoring the sweat. Needless to say, this device is strapped to a person’s ankle. Every hour the device sends a signal or reading to someone designated by the wearer. Action can be taken if the person starts sweating booze.

This device is being sported by a number of celebs, who are either alcoholics trying to become recovering-alcoholics, or have been arrested for DUI. The media is awash with pics of Lindsay Lohan ( who has been busted twice for DUI ,by the way. even though she was wearing the AM the 2^nd time), Drew Barrymore( who apparently wears one on each arm), Tracy Morgan, rapper Eve & of course the blue-eyed girl of the paparazzi, Paris Hilton.

Paris & Lindsay, brand ambassadors for ankle monitors

Now, in a normal world, having to wear this huge piece of electronic circuitry would be a matter of shame. A person forced to wear this would be seen as a criminal, a drunk, or a miserable imbecile. They’d be seen as a lush.

But there’s no such thing as a perfect world, is there? Like there’s no such thing as bad publicity, when it comes to high-flying (no pun intended) socialites.

Even though this is a serious issue, an offence in fact, with serious consequences, (admitted, that Lindsay & Paris got off light though. Lindsay had a 4-day sentence the 1^st time, rehab the second time. Paris served 3 days of her 23-day sentence, on the basis of some undisclosed ‘health-condition’. Paris was then sentenced to house arrest and the monitor. House arrest??! Her house is probably enough to accommodate 50 families from the Dharavi slum) somehow the media has managed to glamorize this. Photos and video footage of these celebs posing gorgeously, in designer outfits (or bikinis as in the case of Lindsay), have captions that describe them as ’………. looking hot and sexy wearing so-and-so’s designer outfit, and the AM.’ This serves to present them as looking ultra fashinable with their new electronic bracelet, as well as making a non-issue of the fact that their actually wearing one.

Now, this ‘person’ is an alcoholic and most probably a legal offender. Instead of trying to turn a new leaf and to act ( and I don’t mean play-acting) responsibly, most celebs end up as legal offenders, again & again & again. Of course, they’ll get off easy, so why should they bother being responsible? And, as usual the media is there to dramatize the whole issue. We have live reports of the ‘incident’, and the ‘sentencing’ and what not. But they don’t seem to dare to be tough on these drunkards. Nope, they report, but they don’t judge.

So at the end of the day, it’s simply fashionable to be wearing a chunky monitoring device. It’s in style. People will look at you as a rich and feisty socialite. Not a drunk.