Angelina + Brad = SHUT UP

I realize that there is not much that hasn't already been said on this issue. And I realize that by writing about it, I am, in a way, part of the problem because I'm giving it attention. But whatever, I just can't hold it in any longer.

I hate Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

HATE.

Not them as people; I don't know them. But I hate them, the couple, the Brangelina, the Pitt/Jolie, the Most Beautiful Couple on their way to producing the Most Beautiful Baby and just shut UP. PLEASE.

Let me start by being completely superficial and selfish. I used to LOVE Angelina Jolie. Back around the time of "Gia," she was, in my opinion, the absolutely hottest thing on earth. No joke. Gorgeous, sexy, talented -- but that stuff is just descriptive, and doesn't really get to what put her over the edge. Why perfect-looking women like Catherine Zeta Jones and Halle Berry leave me cold, but the Angelina of yore could have gotten me to give up men forever. She had this fire and passion and not just a touch of batshit insanity. She was awesome.

Fast forward to now, and I am just...I don't know what happened. Yes, it's true that she still tops most straight chicks' hot girl list, but my girlfriend is gone, and has been replaced with someone else. Or drugged. Or hell, maybe motherhood just matured her or something, who knows, but I don't like it. She looks embalmed to me, a little, and it's like they took her spirit and drained it right out of her, like "Girl, Interrupted" was actually like a vision of things to come

As for Brad Pitt. Well, he always sort of annoyed me, I mean, yeah he's crazy hot and though he picks a lot of sucky projects, he's incredibly great in the right roles. Also -- "Fight Club." Ya know? He was utter perfection in that movie, in every way. But he was never my boyfriend, because he always seemed so disgruntled with fame, to the point where he approached Sean Penn levels of smug martyrdom. And okay, sure, the paparazzi is horrible in a lot of ways, blah blah, but come on. If you don't want the press, then don't be in movies. Or be in movies, but be Tom Hanks. Be Paul freakin' Newman. You can be extremely famous, and not in every tabloid that's out on the stands. Or you can at least make a classy attempt to not be a fame whore, thereby earning yourself more of a right to bitch when the cameras track you down.

Which leads me to my bigger annoyance with Brangelina (gag). Not since The Great J.Lo whoring of 2001-2002 has there been such an incessant flux of non-news about one celebrity, or in this case, celebrities. Just today, I'm minding my own business, online, when I see: "Pitt and Jolie Plan Namibian Birth." This is not news. Okay, sure, very little celebrity gossip is news, but this is also not interesting. THEY are not interesting. They are the most stiflingly boring couple since Donna Martin went out with Joe the guy with the heart condition. All they did was look serious and somber while talking about football and dreams and new treatments at baby-barretted Donnas dad's hospital and it's like the same thing with Brad and Angelina, only with them it's adoption and babies and charitable acts. And of course, don't get me wrong, I deeply support those three things, but that doesn't make it news just because we're supposed to be admiring their heroics and noble deeds and saintliness and stuff. There's this calculated overcompensation to their public image, I think to deflect from the roots of their relationship, which is gross.

And that is what bothers me the most about the whole circus of the Pitt/Jolie (gag) relationship. This underlying mentality that has been there since the beginning, ranging from subtle to blatant, and really creeping me out in a big way. Which is that what Brad Pitt did to his wife was okay because, hey -- it's Angelina. And what the HELL kind of scary, Darwinistic approach to relationships is that?

During the whole time that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were together, they may have been Hollywood's Most Beautiful Couple, and probably one of the more beloved Hollywood couples, but I also heard more than one person remark that Aniston wasn't pretty enough to be with Brad Pitt. Like she'd somehow failed and was scamming the world by managing to lure in Brad Pitt, despite her offensive shortcomings. And first of all, shut up, everyone who said that. Jennifer Aniston rules.

Second of all, shut up world, who reacted to the Brad/Angelina pairing with this underlying relief, or at least understanding. Like, "Oh well, that's sad that he cheated, but who can blame him?" Who can blame him. I can blame him! We all should blame him! I don't mean run him out of town while throwing rocks at him, but at least call a spade a spade and hold him accountable for his actions, which is to say, let's not judge marital breakups on a case-by-case basis of relative hotness!

Because think for a second, if Brad Pitt had cheated on the person he promised the rest of his life to, with anyone besides Angelina Jolie? Like, if Jennifer was the head cheerleader, then Angelina was the homecoming queen, but if Brad had slept with the Hollywood equivalent of say, someone on yearbook. Or even just a regular cheerleader. I really don't think that we'd be getting this crap. It's actually with that photo shoot that they lost me forever, I think. Because before that it's like, all right, mistakes get made, we don't know the whole story, etc. and leave them alone, it's not our business.

But who does that? Like, it wasn't bad enough that Brad cheated on his wife with Angelina, but then he went and did that shoot, like why not just spit at your wife while you're at it, Brad? And then after you spit at her, why don't you impregnate the woman you cheated with and hold a national press conference about it? Oh wait. You actually did that.

So go ahead, media, and try to get me to care about where Brad and Angelina have their child and exchange their vows, because what do vows mean anyway, if the uber-callous breaking of them can be easily smoothed over by fuller lips and orphan babies? I don't judge people for cheating. I don't like it, but I don't make it my problem unless I'm directly affected, because you never know truly what's going on with other people. But there is this really disturbing, insidious, revisionist history being written here. Angelina's prettier than Jennifer, and also more willing to have babies, and therefore more deserving to win the man. I think you're going to have to give me a vintage-y pictorial from earlier than the 1960s to get me on board with that attitude.


©2006