Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Angelina is Having Brad's Baby: Do I Care?

Angelina Jolie is having a baby with Brad Pitt.
Why is this latest chapter in yet another Hollywood real-life soap opera all over the news? (It's the banner headline on Thursday's National Post... above the title, for gods sake.) Who cares? Or more importantly, why does anyone care?
A co-worker of mine was heartbroken -- heartbroken -- that Pitt's apparent fairy tale marriage to Jennifer Aniston ended. She blamed Jennifer for the break-up (she was firmly in the Brad camp), but was prepared to be mad at Angelina should she have somehow been involved.
That my co-worker could be so wrapped up in the private lives of three people that she has never seen in person, let alone met or interacted with, is something I find amazing in a vaguely disturbing sort of way.
For starters, we have absolutely no notion of any so-called celebrity's private life. None. Zippo. Nada. Jennifer Aniston seems like a perfectly decent and nice person. But is she? How the fuck should I know? Maybe she spends all her spare-time quietly visiting orphanages. Maybe she spends all her free time bitch-slapping her puppies. Maybe she doesn't even have puppies!
How can I feel justified enough to pass judgment of these people's live when I have no inkling about them that hasn't gone through a team of publicists, an airbrush artist, The National Enquirer and Mary Hart?
And why would I be interested anyway? They are not people I know, I have no vested interest in their lives. And yet millions or people are apparently keen to know every sordid detail.
I don't understand the public's interest in celebrity, but I do understand the media's: $$$. If people want it, we'll supply it. Entertainment reporters as drug dealers, magazine editor's as pimps. It's a crazy world.
Now, when Jennifer Aniston has Vince Vaughn's baby, call me.

3 comments:

  1. It seems to me that John is interested in Brad and Angelina's new baby, or he would not have paid so much attention to it, let a lone gone out of his way to write about it.
    Such interest reminds me of all those people who won't admit that they watch a particular TV show, but can't stop talking about it.
    It's not just those people who are interested in learning these bits of gossip that feel the need to pass them on. It is those people who feel the gossip is uninteresting and still pass it on that actually perpetuate the artificial belief that it is news.
    So thank you John for making this bit of gossip news.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Damn it, Steph, ta caught me out! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. What's not to get? Its all 'Bread and Circuses'
    Robert

    ReplyDelete