A Lack of Depth

This is somewhat of a follow up post to my previous entry. Actually, just a comment regarding the following couple of paragraphs from New York Magazine:

But even for a life event, celebrity-weekly editors go on to explain, the Brangelina baby is particularly enticing. For one, there’s the simple matter of aesthetics. “The parents happen to be two of the most gorgeous people on the planet. How gorgeous is that baby going to be?” wonders Bonnie Fuller, the editorial director of American Media, whose stable of magazines includes Star. Dan Wakeford, an executive editor of In Touch, offers a tentative answer: “This could possibly be the most beautiful baby in the history of the world.” Even more than looks, there’s the backstory. “There’d be a lot of interest if it was Jennifer Aniston’s baby,” explains an editor at one celebrity weekly, “but with Brangelina, there’s that extra factor that the Hollywood golden couple was broken up so that this relationship, and this baby, could happen . . . I mean, this is the baby Jen wouldn’t give Brad, and the fact that it’s Angelina giving it to him—my feeble little mind can barely handle it!”

In that sense, the birth marks the end of a modern fairy tale, the sentimental made-for-TV-movie moment of the happy new family in their cocoon of bliss (and for added narrative pleasure, there’s poor Aniston off smoking and getting naked in a bad-looking movie with chubby Vince Vaughn). Whoever contrives to get the shot of the gorgeous Pitt-Jolie offspring will not only enjoy a lucrative windfall. They’ll give us the closure we all crave, while throwing open the door to the next serial fairy tale (the inevitable marital bumps, etc.) that will delight and/or disgust millions of us around the world—and sell a ton of magazines. But first, the photo, or what Debra Birnbaum, the deputy editor of Life&Style, calls “the Holy Grail of celebrity journalism.”

The closure we all crave? What is wrong with us as a society that we need closure to a relationship born from adultery, about two people who are total strangers to us? What does it say about us that society finds that romantic? Why is it entertaining to jest about how the victim chose to go on with her life, making a movie with a man who hasn't taken a crap on her trust? Yeah, that's a real drag... Jeez Jen, don't you know you're supposed to be bitter? It plays out better in the tabloids when you're angry honey. The tabloids should be ashamed of themselves for praising the offenders and calling the victim's boyfriend names.

How shallow are we that we think it is at all important to know if Baby Pitt will be the most "beautiful baby in the history of the world"? That child won't be gorgeous right off the bat to anyone but his or her parents. He or she will look like a baby frog or a baby bird, just like every other newborn, "all red, and pinched, and funny looking" (any I Love Lucy fans out there? Die hards will get that quote). How do the tabloids know if this is the "baby that Jen wouldn't give Brad"? Were they a part of the couples marriage? Maybe I'll ask the paparazzi who are assigned to stake out The Ivy (Santa Monica not Beverly Hills) while I'm having lunch there tomorrow. Will they catch Jennifer Aniston smoking yet another cigarette out on the patio? Are you tingling with anticipation to find out?

But the rags can't be solely to blame. They just want to make money and they do that by giving the people what they want, what they crave. We should be ashamed of ourselves for treating celebrities as if their personal lives are just another movie or television show produced for our amusement. These are real people, these are their lives, going through the same heartwrenching ordeals many of us go through... ordeals that bring us to our knees, sobbing; and we anxiously await the newest edition to hit the newstands, like some kind of cliffhanger book. Tsk, tsk!

Not Since Jesus