Who are our female film legends these days? Rare are the sultry, dangerous, and highly individualistic Hollywood goddesses who were so prevalent in the 1930s and 1940s.
Of these few exceptions, one thinks right away of Ms. Angelina Jolie. Ever since about 2004 — when she started crafting a new and revolutionary persona out of her prior story line as an eccentric ingenue, a story line that had been erratic and filled with missteps — she has resonated in a way no other modern female star has managed.
Yes, she is conventionally beautiful: Bosomy and wasp-waisted, with that curtain of hair and those crazy pillowy lips, she is an obvious male sex fantasy. But more suggestively, polls show that her appeal and magnetism play at least as powerfully in the fantasy life of females.
Women admire Angelina Jolie, but that would hardly stop the presses. Polls also show that if women — not just lesbian and bisexual women but straight women — had to choose a female lover, they would want to sleep with Angelina Jolie. In other words, women both identify with her and desire her.
There's something more than a simply physical response. Her persona hits an unprecedented level of global resonance — and makes women want to be with her and be her at the same time — because she has created a life narrative that is not just personal. Rather, it is archetypal. And the archetype is one that really, for the first time in modern culture, brings together almost every aspect of female empowerment and liberation.
Consider how patriarchal civilization has managed to keep women in hand for all these millennia. Among other methods of social control, women are almost always given a series of either-or choices. The deal is usually that they may realize one aspect of their personality but at the expense of many others. And the deal is usually that if they choose "too much," a terrible punishment one way or another awaits them.
So you can be respected as a symbol of goodness (Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa) but not, obviously, be seen as sexual. You can have a hot sex life (Marlene Dietrich) but not at the same time be seen as a symbol of goodness. You can't get away with it. (Somehow, when an icon who was at once both a sexual being and engaged in good deeds died in a violent accident — Princess Di, of course —
the story had a kind of terrible narrative inevitability.) You can take a lover — and even be a home wrecker — but not claim the hope of being seen as a good mom (Madame Bovary, Elizabeth Taylor). You can't get away with it. You can have money, fame, and a dazzling career, but you must surely be depressed, drug addicted, lonely, or self-destructive
(Jacqueline Susann, Marilyn Monroe). You can't get away with it.The magic of Jolie's self-presentation? She makes the claim, with her life and actions, that, indeed, you can get away with it. All of it. Against every Western convention, she has managed to draw together all of these kinds of female liberation and empowerment. And her gestures determinedly transgress social boundaries — boundaries of convention, race, class, and gender — giving many of us a vicarious thrill.
Remember how, for the first few years of Jolie's debut in the media spotlight, she kept hitting off-key notes? She emerged as an edgy starlet in such films as Girl, Interrupted and Hackers,
then broke through into mass-market consciousness with her turn as cartoony superheroine Lara Croft. And with her success in that role, she previewed aspects of the persona that would take her to global icon: sexy and daring, confrontational and independent...
Read more:Of these few exceptions, one thinks right away of Ms. Angelina Jolie. Ever since about 2004 — when she started crafting a new and revolutionary persona out of her prior story line as an eccentric ingenue, a story line that had been erratic and filled with missteps — she has resonated in a way no other modern female star has managed.
Yes, she is conventionally beautiful: Bosomy and wasp-waisted, with that curtain of hair and those crazy pillowy lips, she is an obvious male sex fantasy. But more suggestively, polls show that her appeal and magnetism play at least as powerfully in the fantasy life of females.
Women admire Angelina Jolie, but that would hardly stop the presses. Polls also show that if women — not just lesbian and bisexual women but straight women — had to choose a female lover, they would want to sleep with Angelina Jolie. In other words, women both identify with her and desire her.
There's something more than a simply physical response. Her persona hits an unprecedented level of global resonance — and makes women want to be with her and be her at the same time — because she has created a life narrative that is not just personal. Rather, it is archetypal. And the archetype is one that really, for the first time in modern culture, brings together almost every aspect of female empowerment and liberation.
Consider how patriarchal civilization has managed to keep women in hand for all these millennia. Among other methods of social control, women are almost always given a series of either-or choices. The deal is usually that they may realize one aspect of their personality but at the expense of many others. And the deal is usually that if they choose "too much," a terrible punishment one way or another awaits them.
So you can be respected as a symbol of goodness (Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa) but not, obviously, be seen as sexual. You can have a hot sex life (Marlene Dietrich) but not at the same time be seen as a symbol of goodness. You can't get away with it. (Somehow, when an icon who was at once both a sexual being and engaged in good deeds died in a violent accident — Princess Di, of course —
the story had a kind of terrible narrative inevitability.) You can take a lover — and even be a home wrecker — but not claim the hope of being seen as a good mom (Madame Bovary, Elizabeth Taylor). You can't get away with it. You can have money, fame, and a dazzling career, but you must surely be depressed, drug addicted, lonely, or self-destructive
(Jacqueline Susann, Marilyn Monroe). You can't get away with it.The magic of Jolie's self-presentation? She makes the claim, with her life and actions, that, indeed, you can get away with it. All of it. Against every Western convention, she has managed to draw together all of these kinds of female liberation and empowerment. And her gestures determinedly transgress social boundaries — boundaries of convention, race, class, and gender — giving many of us a vicarious thrill. Remember how, for the first few years of Jolie's debut in the media spotlight, she kept hitting off-key notes? She emerged as an edgy starlet in such films as Girl, Interrupted and Hackers,
then broke through into mass-market consciousness with her turn as cartoony superheroine Lara Croft. And with her success in that role, she previewed aspects of the persona that would take her to global icon: sexy and daring, confrontational and independent...
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