I see that Angelina Jolie is on the cover of Vogue this month, to brighten our February gloom, which provides me with an opportunity to discuss what might be the most urgent question of our era: why is Jolie so famous?
Let’s take this apart. First: why is Jolie well-known at all? Because she’s an actor, of course. Aha, I say to you, waggling my moustache like Hercule Poirot, right before dismantling somebody’s alibi: name a single movie of Jolie’s that you have actually seen. Maybe Maleficent, AKA Wicked Witch Of The Cheekbones? Possibly Girl, Interrupted? Sure, they exist, those movies, and she was definitely in them. Except they were made two decades apart, and they came out either long before her peak fame era or many years into it, which I would date roughly as 2005 to 2017. Instead, during that period Jolie made films such as Wanted, Beowulf, Changeling and Salt. Did you see any of those? Of course not. No one you know saw Jolie’s 2017 film, By The Sea. And yet, during those years, Jolie was probably the most A-list US actress in the world.
So if it’s not because of the movies, then why? Well, Jolie is very beautiful and she does lots of things that come under the vague umbrella term of “humanitarian work”: campaigning for refugees, women and children in developing countries, which is obviously very good; going to war zones during actual wars, which is … is that good? Bob Hope did that and people loved him for it, but I’m guessing Jolie didn’t break into any comedy song and dance routines in Darfur. But sure, she is clearly well-intentioned. Although again, this doesn’t explain her level of fame, given that the public’s interest in celebrity goodwill ambassadors falls, I have long suspected, far short of what the UN believes.
Instead, Jolie is largely famous for her personal life, which has been, no question, a helluva ride. She mined the emo era in the late 90s with Girl, Interrupted, and by wearing a vial of her brother’s blood to the Oscars; she outplayed everyone in the big celebrity era of the noughties when she ran off with Brad Pitt; and here she is now, already well ahead of today’s more wholesome vibe, talking about the importance of family. No question, in her personal life, Jolie absolutely walks the walk: she broke every taboo around for sexy Hollywood stars when she went public about her preventive double mastectomy, highlighting the importance of testing for BRCA mutations to prevent breast cancer.
And Vogue tacitly acknowledges that it is really not about the work in its interview with Jolie: 85% of the questions are about her family, 13% are about her humanitarian work, and 1% is about her forthcoming appearance in a Marvel movie. There are no references to previous films, no casual mention of iconic roles, because, well, we covered that already. Instead the final 1% is given over to this gripping hot-button question: “Could you tell us about your upcoming project with Guerlain and women beekeepers?”
Now, when a celebrity is asked this kind of question, it means one of two things: they are so powerful that the journalist has agreed to ask this in order to bag the interview, or there is no more work you can ask them about. What’s interesting about Jolie is that, in her case, it’s both.
I don’t mean this as a slur against her, because I actually think Jolie is completely brilliant at what she does, which is being a celebrity. You might argue that we live in an age in which there are lots of people who are famous for nothing much: influencers, reality TV stars, Peter Andre who is, according to the tabloids, still A Thing. But Jolie is in a different league. For a start, all these lesser celebrities build their brands on that loathsome PR concept of “relatability”. Jolie is not here to be related to. Jessica Garner might post details of her cooking disasters, and Ben Affleck is photographed picking his Amazon deliveries up off the doorstep, but it feels very TBD whether Jolie eats, sleeps or does anything recognisably normal at all.
In that sense, she is famous in a deeply, pleasingly old-school way, and she riffs on this. She has adopted a zillion children, continuing a tradition established by Joan Crawford and, more obviously, Mia Farrow. She travels the world doing good works, as Audrey Hepburn did. She even lives in Cecil B DeMille’s former house in Los Angeles. But all those people – and I’m sorry to keep harping on about this – are associated with multiple films. Jolie is more in the vein of Zsa Zsa Gabor, a woman who certainly acted, but was famous, ultimately, for being both over the top and completely fabulous.
And as I sit at home in miserable lockdown, looking at the Vogue photoshoot of Jolie in a kaftan, in her garden with her giant dogs, answering questions about her work with female beekeepers, I have to think, relatable schmelatable. Over the top and fabulous every time, please.
• Hadley Freeman and Tim Dowling will be in conversation on 25 February at 8pm. Find details and £5 tickets for their livestreamed event at membership.theguardian.com