It isn’t often that the media is presented with news that’s truly worth covering, and now that it’s upon us, we can only hope we can live up to the gargantuan challenge.
For a while, now, it appeared that every dire warning issued by those stentorian opponents of social media had come true. The world – and our preoccupations with its happenings – had indeed become too frivolous. Public discourse had begun to circle around Rick Santorum stepping down from his Presidential campaign in the most influential nation in the First World, and elsewhere we were discussing the tsunami that didn’t hit our shores when yet another giant quake rocked the foundations of Indonesia. But the cosmic balance has prevailed. Finally, we get news about people more powerful than Presidents, whose merest movements can precipitate realignments in our topography. I refer, of course, to the announcement that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are engaged to be married. If that isn’t news with a capital N, what is?
Finally, we journalists can begin to grapple with the real issues, beginning with speculations about the date. Will it be a summery May wedding? Or will they opt to marry in December, expiring movie-ready mists of cold air while intoning vows? Of course, globe-trotting celebrities do not worry about the weather like us plebes. A cursory snap of the finger will ensure that a battalion of nannies has readied their children to migrate to the southern hemisphere, whose Decembers bloom forth with spectacular suns that David Lean would gladly rise from his grave to capture. Will the event be a planned celebration, in a church (in which case, will they able to locate a minister who can stop gawping long enough to usher them through the formalities?), or will the couple borrow a leaf from a rejected romantic-comedy script and elope? In that case, will they be able to evade our much-maligned brethren, the paparazzi, perched on the turrets and bell towers of every house of worship in every Christian nation, and even a few Hindu ones? (Let’s not forget that Jolie and Pitt are no strangers to India, having blessed us with their presence while filming A Mighty Heart, which, when you think of it, makes a great title for the inevitable History Channel documentary that will preserve these nuptials for posterity.)
But enough about the wedding. Just as Presidential campaigns cannot be covered by simply focusing on snaking lines beside ballot boxes, the Pitt-Jolie union cannot be fully comprehended without investigating its influence on our world today. We will need to install news panels to discuss, among other things, the morality of it all. Will future generations enter into wedlock only after extricating themselves from existing marriages, living with one another in unrepentant sin, all the while amassing children from dirt-poor Third World countries? What, then, does this mean for race relations, when one day in the not-too-distant future, the entire population of Burundi will reside in Beverly Hills? Isn’t there a feminist issue lurking in here as well, when a woman so powerful and famous decides to supplicate before such a patently patriarchal institution? Even Cleopatra, after an understandably short-lived marriage to a sibling, chose to string along Caesar as political arm candy. Hasn’t the life of Elizabeth Taylor taught anyone anything?
Morning shows, meanwhile, after scrutinising the engagement ring with jewelers and fashion experts (who will also weigh in on the kind of dress Jolie will wear, and the consequence it will carry on Jennifer Aniston’s gown, if and when the poor thing chooses to marry again), will rope in child experts and discuss what the Pitt-Jolie brood will go through, now that their parents are going to have joint checking accounts. How will these ecumenical tykes adapt from pagan holidays in exotic shooting locations to Thanksgiving with daddy’s deaf uncle Harry? Can these younglings, raised on mountain spring water and soy nuggets, take to the sight of turkey, a word that they, so far, have been exposed to only in the context of their mother’s film, The Tourist? These are vital issues with far-reaching implications, and they will no doubt spawn thousands of journalism-school theses.
The international desks of news agencies, naturally, will devote their energies to the international ramifications. Which country gets to claim this wedding (and deploy its armies to protect the superstars from being felled by the solar brilliance of millions of camera flashes)? The country of the couple’s birth? The country where they currently reside? Will Wall-Street occupiers and beleaguered European taxpayers take kindly to contributing to a private party of multi-millionaires they’re not even invited to? And what will this wedding mean to Saif and Kareena, who have kept this great nation’s media institutions guessing about their own upcoming union, Brand Saifeena being but a blip on the radar when compared to the all-enveloping tractor beam of Brand Brangelina? At least, they can take comfort that they aren’t Will and Kate, whose carefully planned fairy-tale wedding of the century has just been trumped by the flash of an engagement ring.
An edited version of this piece can be found here.
Copyright ©2012 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
brangan
April 19, 2012
Wrote this last weekend as a bit of a lark/writing practice, and it ended up in the paper today.
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sriramv
April 19, 2012
Branganvaal!
What a write up! Lovely! Wah! Kya baat hai! If this was practice then what is the real stuff! Others abide by our question, but thou art free!
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rameshram
April 19, 2012
Oh I knew it! angelina’s widelegged oscar stance was a sign.
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sindu219
April 19, 2012
🙂 Looks like you indeed are doing our news houses a great favor. You just made work easier for them by presenting an exhaustive list of angles from which to cover this ‘important’ story.
Of course, it would be pointless to ruminate now on the ethics of journalism since you yourself believed that sarcasm is a better way out to get the message across. But I just want to point out that somewhere, fixation with these celebrities and their lives act as a substitute/ compensation for the lack of action, excitement and passion in our own. I would have liked to say, ‘lets banish this psychological need’ but then, on second thought, a part of the appeal for the medium of films too derives from this.
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Venky
April 21, 2012
Excellent piece of writing. I am surprised to see you mention that the arrival of Social Media has made our entire public discourse frivolous. I believe this began ever since cable television fed us with crunchy news bytes on every issue, loaded with enough flavoring stimulants to titillate the viewer to watch the silly commercial about to start within the next sixty seconds. Of course, social media has made each and everyone of us lead vicarious lives of celebrities with our friends’ networks becoming our own paparazzi following( or should I say, stalking) us in those crammed feed(er)s of ego, boxing our lives inside statuses 140 characters long.
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brangan
April 21, 2012
In the I-told-you-so department:
Brad and Angelina: What Does Marriage Mean? What we can learn from the trials and triumphs of celebrity relationships.
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rameshram
April 21, 2012
“Excellent piece of writing. ”
Oh come on its not an “excellent pice of writing! its just Brannigan auditioning to be a gossip columnist for stardust! 😀
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Saltaholic
April 22, 2012
Am i the only one who noticed that the piece is dated 21st April, but BR’s first comment is dated 19th?
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Maithreyi
April 22, 2012
I’ll admit–as much as I enjoyed the sarcasm, I was surprised that this actually got published. Slow news day? (and yes, I am aware of the irony)
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vijay
April 23, 2012
This will end up like Kolaveri di. After having been forcefed with their news for years when the marriage finally happens it will not be as sensational(even in the US leave alone here).And both of them look fucking old already. Personally I am more interested about Sneha&Prasanna right now than Brangelina
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brangan
April 23, 2012
My favourite bit of snark (from a forward) is this Jack Black tweet:
Forget Beniffer & Brangelina! The new power couple in Hollywood is Peeta & Katniss from The Hunger Games! Or Peeniss for short.
ROFL!
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Nissim Mannathukkaren
April 24, 2012
Hi BR, I thought that for a short piece, the wedding part itself took up too much of space. The middle part, about feminism, was interesting.
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TheWannabeWriter
October 6, 2016
What are the chances that “brangelina” was inspired from “brangan”? 😆 (any sort of school girlishness in the comment is unintentional…)
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