Alex Massie Alex Massie

Angelina Jolie is the World’s Best Woman, Right?


Angelina Jolie attends Belstaff’s ‘The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button’ Premiere & After Party on December 8, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Alexandra Wyman/Getty Images for Belstaff.

Some of you will doubtless have your own sordid little reasons for thinking, yes she is. Here’s the good news: Naomi Wolf agrees with you! Ms Wolf has written what may be the most amusing piece I’ve read all year. The Lovely Angelina, you see, “has it all”. The whole thing is priceless but, as Double X’s Willa Paskin explains, this may be the most deliciously off-the-wall part of the whole extravagant mess:

Then there is the plane. Women are so used to being dependent on others (certainly on men) for where they go, metaphorically, and how they get there. Flying a private plane is the classic metaphor for choosing your own direction; usually, that is a guy thing to do, yet there was Jolie, with her aviator glasses on, taking flying lessons so she could blow the mind of her four-year-old son. That is the ultimate in single-mom chic: Even before she had reconstructed a nuclear (or postnuclear) family with a dad at the head of it, she was reframing single motherhood from a state of lack or insufficiency to a glamorous, unfettered lifestyle choice. Paradoxically, having done so, she makes the choice of a man to help her raise her kids seem like one option among many for a self-directed woman rather than either a completion of a woman or a capitulation.

See, ladies, it ain’t so very hard after all. You too can be Just Like Angelina!

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in