I have a love-hate relationship with Angelina Jolie. Angie (as she prefers) seems blissfully unperturbed by this. But I, feeling constantly pulled in opposing directions, am less sanguine about it. And since she’s arguably the most popular woman in American culture, I have to think about her pretty frequently. Specifically, I have to think about what I think of her. And honestly, it’s exhausting.
Naomi Wolf’s June cover story in Bazaar, for example. Not an interview. Not even, strictly speaking, a profile. What it is (strictly speaking) is an unabashed girl-crush of a love letter, thinly disguised as an essay—a frothy 1600-word gusher extolling Angie as “the face of female empowerment” who “brings together almost every aspect of liberation.” That laughably overblown accolade lands squarely on my Angie-angst.
“Jolie-laide” (literally “pretty-ugly”) is a slangy French expression for something that’s beautiful in an off-key or unexpected way. Someone (or something) whose beauty draws you in even as their ugliness repels you. Think pugs. Or Sandra Bernhard. In relation to Angie, I also think of it as something beautiful that lives in close proximity to something ugly. Or something beautiful that’s done in an unbeautiful way. Angelina Jolie-Laide—the things that are most appealing about her co-exist in glaring discord with her least admirable qualities.
For instance, her professional success versus her personal craziness. She tops Forbes’s 2009 Celebrity 100 list as the most powerful celebrity and is widely acknowledged as the only woman in her profession who could actually support an action-hero franchise. Yet she has variously admitted to self-cutting, to wanting to be a vampire, to contemplating hiring someone to kill her, to an affection for BDSM, and to a formerly close personal relationship with heroin. She pretty much summed it up during a press interview for Girl, Interrupted when she explained, “You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens.”
Then there’s her madonna-like creation of a nuclear family of six children (three of whom are adopted) versus her history of unrepentantly wrecking others’ families. She hooked up with Billy Bob Thornton when he was engaged to Laura Dern. And as for her current relationship with Brad Pitt, we all know way too much about that particular triangle.
Likewise the jarring juxtaposition of her seemingly feminist lifestyle—she flies planes, rides motorcycles, adopted a child by herself—with her utter lack of any close non-sexual female relationships. Although she’s unconstrained by gender stereotypes, her only friends of any stripe seem to be men whom she’s been previously involved with.
Naomi thinks that Angie “has created a life narrative that is . . . archetypal. And the archetype is one that really, for the first time in modern culture, brings together almost every aspect of female empowerment and liberation.”
Nope. Sorry Naomi. Angie’s just too problematic as a feminist archetype. You have to close one eye and tilt your head to the right to bring that view into focus. And you can't really see her as any sort of role model, either, since only someone with vast financial resources could possibly live/work/contribute/mother as she does.
But I’ll allow that she is — as Virginia Postrel posits—an icon of glamour. And as that icon—an object of mystery upon whom we can project our own subjective yearnings—she’s a darn good one. Angie once said that, “Acting is not pretending or lying. It’s finding a side of yourself that’s like the character and ignoring the other sides.” The same is true of her own iconic role: she’s got something for everybody, which is the source of her vast popularity. You just have to ignore all the things that don't fit.
If you want to see a strong, independent woman—the aspect of her that most appeals to me—Angie’s got that in spades. She says, “If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I'm not frightened by anyone's perception of me.” I envy her relentless self-confidence. As long as I ignore the conflicting reality of her inability to be without a man—particularly one whose appeal is currently validated by another alpha female—then I’m good.
Likewise, you can easily view her as a mother figure—as long as you ignore her predatory home wrecker tendencies and off-beat sexual proclivities. And you can even muster up a bit of feminist cred for her, as long you ignore the fact that she doesn’t seem to have much use for other women.
Only her humanitarian work of the past eight years as a goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees speaks for itself, and it speaks loudly and intelligently. She travels widely to developing countries, gives speeches at the United Nations, lobbies Capitol Hill, and leverages her celebrity to publicize humanitarian issues around the world. She not only manages to hold her own with heavy hitters such as General Wesley Clark, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, (prosecutor for the International Criminal Court) and Ted Sorenson (JFK’s speechwriter), she actually earns their respect.
Angie's humanitarian work will likely be her legacy. And that’s something I can admire—as long as I follow her advice and “[ignore] the other sides.”
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