What was Angelina Jolie best known for in 2004?
a.) Wearing a vial of Billy Bob Thornton's blood around her neck.
b.) Making out with her brother on the red carpet.
c.) Being the offspring of ‘70s star Jon Voight.
d.) All of the above.
The answer, of course, is d. There was talent there — in 1999, she’d won an Oscar for her depiction of a sociopathic mental patient in Girl, Interrupted — but that performance had also effectively set her image at the intersection of beautiful and menacing. The marriage to Thornton, who was 20 years her senior, and their frankness about their sex life (knife play, bondage) only amplified the message: This girl was gorgeous, but wow was she weird.
But it gets even weirder — just not in the way you’d expect. While filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in Cambodia, Jolie became invested in the plight of refugees, leading to her high-profile appointment as a United Nations ambassador. Then, in 2002, Jolie finalized the adoption of a 1-year-old boy, Maddox, from an orphanage in Cambodia.
Carmen Valdes / Via WireImages
How could those two very different understandings of Jolie make sense together? Most Hollywood stars, with the help of their publicists and agents, work very, very hard to have a coherent image — to “mean” something clearly and simply: the Nice Guy, the Pinup, the Tough Dude. Ryan Reynolds, Megan Fox, Vin Diesel.
But the biggest Hollywood star images are complicated, and even contradictory: Marilyn Monroe was pure sex, but she radiated innocence; Marlon Brando was overpoweringly masculine yet incredibly sensitive.
So Jolie’s image mixed dangerous sexuality...and benevolent humanitarianism? It sounds ridiculous. But it was precisely that combination, and the flexibility it permitted, that allowed Jolie to not only weather one of the biggest potential scandals of the decade, but facilitated her rise to superstardom.
It's because Angelina Jolie plays the celebrity game better than anyone else in the business. Her game is subtle, often invisible, incredibly precise, and always, always effective. And by all accounts, she does it without the help of a publicist. To best explain how she masters it today, though, we have to return to 2004 — but this time, to Brad Pitt.
George Pimentel / Via Getty
In fall 2004, Brad Pitt was one of the top leading men in Hollywood. Two-time “Sexiest Man Alive,” he was coming off of the massive success of both Ocean’s 12 and Troy, in which he appeared mostly nude at the age of 40. He was also in the fourth year of marriage to Jennifer Aniston; together, they formed Hollywood’s most golden — and, arguably, beloved — couple.
Pitt and Jolie had both signed on to make Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a double-crossing spy thriller intended to exploit Jolie’s skill at what can only be called sexy fighting. When filming began in fall 2004, Jolie was single, but Pitt was married — still, it was no surprise that the narrative of the film, which required them to play rival assassins who just happened to be married, sparked immediate rumors of romance. It was all routine gossip, status quo for two stars in any movie — at least until January 2005, when Pitt announced that he and Aniston would divorce.
Both Pitt and Jolie denied that anything had happened, but Jolie’s image, coupled with suggestive stills from the film, kept the story in circulation. Then, in late April, a revelation: pictures of Pitt and Jolie playing on a Kenyan beach, published on the cover of Us Weekly with the subtitle "12 PAGES OF NEW PICS THAT PROVE THE ROMANCE WAS REAL."
Via Usweekly.com
While none of the images show Pitt and Jolie in a romantic configuration, let alone touching, Pitt’s familiarity with Maddox seemed to tell a different story. Quickly dubbed “Brangelina,” the pair dominated the summer news cycle, first promoting Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which defied expectations by opening with a $50 million weekend — a personal best for both stars — and went on to gross over $150 million worldwide. Then, in July, with Mr. and Mrs. Smith still in theaters, the pair traveled to adopt a 6-month-old AIDS orphan, named Zahara, from Ethiopia.
There was no confirmation of a relationship, no public displays of affection. At press junkets, interviewers signed agreements that they wouldn’t ask questions about their personal lives. Indeed, it wasn’t until Jolie revealed that she was pregnant in January 2006 that the pair publicly acknowledged their relationship status.
Usually, a refusal to publicly comment or otherwise shape the response to scandal results in backlash. In 1950, it was revealed that Ingrid Bergman was pregnant with the child of Italian neorealist director Roberto Rossellini, whom she had met while filming Stromboli. When Bergman became pregnant, she was still married to her Swedish husband, thereby making the pregnancy even more illicit. As a result, Bergman became embroiled in the biggest Hollywood scandal since the Fatty Arbuckle trial. So scandalous, in fact, that she was publicly denounced on the floor of the United States Senate as an “instrument of evil,” the subject of dozens of condemnatory editorials and a generalized object of scorn.
Pascal Le Segretain / Via Getty Images for Cinema for Peace
Many female stars from the period had endured similar ordeals — they’d just covered them up. With the help of studio “fixers,” dozens of starlets had abortions; when Loretta Young found herself pregnant with the very married Clark Gable's baby, she traveled to Europe, went into hiding, gave the baby up for adoption… and then adopted her.
Bergman, in other words, had options. But from the start, she had resisted the normal strategies for Hollywood stardom. When famed producer David O. Selznick “discovered” her in Sweden and brought her stateside, she resisted all attempts to shape her into a Hollywood starlet: Bergman refused to pluck her eyebrows, or wear heavy makeup, or mold her image in any manner.
Instead of battling her, Selznick decided to exploit her stubbornness, framing her as the “Nordic Natural” who didn’t even need the normal sculpting and shaping. Lack of image, in other words, as image: What you saw was what you got.
Popperfoto / Via Getty Images
This lack of mediation — and resistance to publicity maneuvering — is precisely what made it so difficult for Bergman to negotiate her scandal. Two years earlier, Robert Mitchum had been arrested for possession of marijuana while hanging out with a woman who was decidedly not his wife. Well aware of the public perception of illegal drug use, Mitchum declared his career over. But 43 days as a model prisoner, along with some savvy publicity manipulation and a very remorseful, very sappy apology in the leading fan magazine, salvaged his career.
Archive Photos / Via Getty Images
But Mitchum gave himself fully over to the recuperation of his image — a campaign that included a full-page spread of him playing with his sons and this piece of magnificent copy:
"Wild animals at a birthday party! A fishing trip on a desert sea! But then, as Josh and Chris Mitchum can tell you, wonderful things have been happening since Dad came home ... Bob always had a great fondness for his sons. But in the past, his attitude with them was pretty casual. Now he gives them most of his leisure time."
It sounds sappy, but it worked; if anything, Mitchum became more successful. Bergman, however, treated the entire affair as a private matter, refusing to do any press or otherwise attempt to exculpate herself. It was all very European.
And so Bergman retreated to Italy, gave birth to a daughter, gave birth to a set of twins, made movies with Rossellini. Bergman’s offense was far more grave than Mitchum’s — in part because she was a woman, and her “sin” was sexual — but her unwillingness to speak or otherwise mitigate the fallout from her actions, and thereby control the trajectory of the narrative, effectively blacklisted her in Hollywood and ended her American career.
Which returns us to Brangelina: The lack of public comment could have mired both Jolie and Pitt in the quagmire of bad press and bombing movies. But Pitt and Jolie were speaking constantly. They were just doing so semiotically.
In April, for example, immediately following the release of the photos of him and Jolie on the beach, Pitt flew to Ethiopia, where he spent three days touring AIDS orphanages.
J. Tayloe Emery / Via ONE.ORG via Getty Images
In May, Jolie participated in a humanitarian mission in Sierra Leone, meeting with the president and speaking privately with victims of the 2002 civil war.
Business Wire / Via Getty Images
In October, Jolie visited Darfur to bring attention to the plight of Sudanese refugees; later that month, she returned to New York to receive the U.N.’s Global Humanitarian Action Award.
Richard Corkery / Via NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
In November, she appeared at a Washington press conference celebrating the signing of the Assistance for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children in Developing Countries Act, while Pitt spent two days meeting with various politicians to lobby on behalf of the ONE Foundation’s work in Africa.
Win McNamee / Via Getty Images
They then flew to Geneva to hear debriefings on the aftermath of the Pakistani earthquake; for Thanksgiving, they flew to Pakistan, where they participated in relief efforts.
Pakistan Ministry of Information / Via Getty Images
When Jolie reached her eighth month of pregnancy, she and Pitt made the decision to move, temporarily, to Namibia, in hopes of avoiding paparazzi yet drawing attention to the impoverished country; when they sold the rights to the first photos of their daughter, Shiloh, for over $7 million, they donated the money to charities fighting AIDS in Africa.
And the list goes on and on, from Pitt’s high-profile work with the Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans to the adoption, six months after the birth of Shiloh, of a 3-year-old Vietnamese orphan, Pax — all of which were regularly punctuated with images of Jolie, Pitt, and their ever-growing family looking like, well, a family, albeit an untraditional one.
S. Granitz / Via WireImage
This photo, for example, is a semiotic gold mine: Shiloh, often nicknamed “The Chosen One,” a glimmering beacon of whiteness, flanked by her racially marked siblings, one of whom seems to be protecting her from possible harm. All three are framed by their doting parents, tied to their children via skin color, head/neck scarf, hair highlighting, and physical touch. They’re a “Party of Five,” as the title of the accompanying article puts it, but they’re a distinctly global one: The photos were all shot in Cambodia, and when asked how her children manage all the traveling, Jolie says, “We’ve tried to make them very adaptable, so when we go to a country like India or certain parts of Namibia, they’re happy to play with sticks and rocks outside — they’re happy to blend.”
Taken together, these images, and the stories that accompanied them, were speaking about their relationship, even if the pair themselves weren’t offering comment. And what they were saying was that this wasn’t a story about sex or scandal; rather, it was one of family, humanitarianism, and global citizenship. Within this framework, any publication that chose to focus on sexual intrigue was effectively neglecting the most in need.
Take the dozens of letters to the editor that People received and printed in response to its months of Brangelina coverage. While there were always letters like this...
I'm sickened by Angelina and Brad. They should be hiding their romance out of embarrassment and shame.
Great! Yet another baby born out of wedlock. These people read lines for a living; you'd think they'd be able to read the directions on a contraceptive package.
...they were always surrounded by ones like this:
I had a hard time getting past the whole Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston breakup. However, after reading your story and seeing the photos, it is obvious how in love he and Angelina Jolie are. I applaud them for putting so much heart and soul not only into raising their children in a loving environment but also for raising them to be proud, aware and kind.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the picture of Brad, Angelina and their children is priceless: three alert children with their parents as bookends. Look how Brad's and Angelina's arms surround them, with Maddox protectively holding his baby sister. I am not a big celebrity watcher, but I know a loving family when I see one.
These are real letters, but People’s choice to run these particular ones — always in a way that outshines the single dissenting voice — implicitly encouraged other readers to take up the same attitudes.
There’s an old PR maxim that goes, “If you don’t like what people are saying about you, then change the conversation.” That’s what Bergman failed to do, but what Angelina Jolie did with aplomb. It was more than just the beautiful images, though: It was what they represented.
More specifically, Jolie’s image management played on anxieties and ideals specific to the mid-2000s: If Aniston was America’s sweetheart — the girl next door par excellence — then Jolie was the cosmopolitan, global citizen. If Aniston was cute and victimized, then Jolie was sexy, in control of her sexuality and the men around her — a vivid manifestation of postfeminism that projects both the success of feminism and its current irrelevance. If Aniston was reticent to juggle family and career, then Jolie wanted a sprawling international family, the marks of her globalism literally tattooed on her body in the form of the longitude and latitude of her children’s birthplaces.
Jolie’s image thus combines a successful career, motherhood, engaged philanthropy, and active sex appeal: the very height of having it all, but in a way that reflects a distinctly transnational, non-U.S.-centric identity that might not appeal to a certain swath of conservative American moviegoers, but made her — and, by extension, Pitt, whose image has been folded into her own — immensely appealing to progressive Americans and the global market at large.
That’s how Jolie functioned ideologically. But it’s not the entire story.
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