Is Angelina Jolie the Next Feminist Icon?

By Vanessa Richmond, The Tyee. Posted June 10, 2009.

As selfish as any man

That man, Brad Pitt, also adds to her mega-power, given that he's "the male seen as the most desired of the tribe, who is always ranked at the top of indexes of male beauty and virility," (though eight spots behind her on the Forbes list). It wasn't a given that he would: her scarlet-letter infraction, her "megascandal," her alleged seduction of him while married (to a celebrity with an American girl-next-door sweetheart persona no less) could have discredited her completely. But she turned the home-wrecker label into a "wholesome, family-friendly triumph." Shortly after she and Pitt got together, on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, there were photos of her new uber-partner (formerly childless) playing football with Maddox, her adopted son.

And in the end, "Jolie's evident disdain of that social constraint [of falling for a married man] certainly, for better or worse, put her in the same self-entitled category as those men who have traditionally taken what they wanted and let the emotional chips fall where they may."

Wolf then argues Jolie "kicked her career into overdrive" when she started doing public appearances (and work apparently) in aid of stricken women and children worldwide. Then Brangelina's rapid adoption of additional children, though problematic for many reasons, in my opinion, "certainly stood out in a raft of narratives of stars who simply shop, tan, and go into rehab."

I am woman, hear my plane roar

Oh and "then there is the plane." Yes, she flies. Her own plane. Because women are usually "dependent on others (certainly on men) for where they go, metaphorically, and how they get there, the plane " is the classic metaphor for choosing your own direction."

But as other feminists have pointed out, Jolie is still not much more than a sex symbol, "a pornographic feminist fantasy," who talks.

Look, I get that Angelina Jolie does some volunteer work and gives money to charity, and sure I'm pleased about that. Just as I am that someone is rebranding single motherhood, and that a celebrity with some conscience beats out others like Paris Hilton. But does she match Oprah when it comes to personality or service?

Jolie's win shows that men and women's fantasy female is built primarily from boobs and lips. Is Jolie really all that knowledgeable about world politics (like Wolf)? Of course, we don't even really know what she is knowledgeable about: Jolie is a professional pretender, a blank canvas for our projections.

Maybe we shouldn't declare that women can now have it all. Unless, of course, we're willing to admit that's our fantasy of choice.

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