Star Theory: Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie (birthname: Angelina Jolie Voight) is an American actress, film director, screenwriter and author who has an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe awards. She was named Hollywood's most highest paid actress in Forbes in 2009, 2011 and 2013. She is typically best known for her roles in 'Original Sin', 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider', 'Mr and Mrs Smith', 'Salt', 'The Tourist', and upcoming film 'Maleficent'. 


Stars as Capital Value
Angelina Jolie is worth $145 million, as one of the most highest paid Hollywood Actresses, which particularly came to light after the release of 'The Cradle of Life', the sequel to the major success 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.'
What Angelina Jolie brings to the studio which is beneficial to the films includes mostly her looks. By many media outlets she has been named the world's most 'beautiful woman', which would therefore attract the audience to the film, if the character role she is playing requires a 'good looking woman' to play the part, particularly reinforcing Mulvey's theory of the Male Gaze. This is related to the idea that a lot of the films she has worked on are action films with a typically male audience, and so she does well at attracting these viewers to watch the films. In addition to this, her martial arts abilities and her physical strength and fitness mean she is well equipped to play many of the protagonist roles in the action films, and continue to appeal to the same audience. Her large fan base allows many of her films to be predicted as successful before they are even released.

Star as a construct
Gledhill wrote that audiences want to know the ‘real’ person, but also the ‘reel’ star. 
Angelina Jolie's life is not particularly private, as she always seems to be confronted with paparazzi, particularly because she is engaged to famous actor Brad Pitt also. This means it would be extremely hard for her personally to present her real self, because the media is constantly constructing her persona in a way which is mediated for us to see in magazines that we would be interested in. However, it would also mean we can get more of an insight into her real life compared to other actors that are not in the media as much, and so we could get a glimpse of what she really might be like. For example, her character's tend to be sexy, independent women with action-packed secret lives, but we know from all of the media attention she is a family woman and caring mother, who lives with Brad and also her 3 biological children and 3 adopted children. Overall, due to media distortions, and her busy life, it is difficult to determine what exactly her real life is like, but what we see is probably not constructed by herself, but constructed by the paparazzi.

Stars as deviant

Angelina Jolie was particularly quiet about any deviance in her life on her way to popularity, but then in interviews she started to reveal about dark parts of her life. She has never been in prison, but she spoke of a time when she was a heavy drug-taker, particularly of cocaine and ecstasy, and also of her 'bad girl' past, such as using knives during sex and wearing a vial of her ex-husband's blood around her neck. Although she spoke to the media about these, these were things that had happened in the past and not the present, so it was concluded that she was not acting deviant as a film star persona construct, but merely because of personal issues. Her actions could be justified by the idea that now she is a successful and happy, caring family woman who does a lot of charity work and is more or less over her deviant times, which could be shown as inspirational to her fans.

Stars as Cultural Value
In some ways, Angelina Jolie goes against ideological social values in her roles in films. In a lot of her action films, such as Tomb Raider, Salt, Mr and Mrs Smith, Wanted, and The Tourist, she always seems to carry guns, act violently, or is escaping from something or someone, which is not the way the film would expect its audience to behave. The purpose of this would be to make the film a form of enjoyment and escapism because it is thrilling for the audience, as it deviates the social norms. However these roles could also portray values about being yourself and how not allowing yourself to be controlled to a certain extent is sometimes a good thing. These are the values portrayed by the producer though, and not the actress herself. Her personal life in the present, which involves charity work and family life, expresses many cultural values of love, compassion, morals and happiness, which are virtues that would inspire her own fans, and not just the fans of her films, which therefore would make her a positive role model.

The benefits of stars for audiences and producers
Using Angelina Jolie as an example, the benefit of her as a star for producers is her popularity. As she becomes more popular through more and more films as the lead role, she creates more of a fan base, and therefore more people will be wanting to see her films. This is useful for producers because it means the films will make more money with more people wanting to see them, if they are interested in the actress in them. In terms of audience, as she becomes more popular the audience will want to see more films of hers, and thus are more likely to watch a wider range of genres and styles from different directors, just because she is cast in them. Also, by watching more and more films with Angelina in them, the more an audience will be inspired by her and use her as a role model to instil values and aspirations into themselves. Ultimately, she is used as a prop to fulfil the needs of producers and audiences for money.