Friday, January 13, 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.

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