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So
what are the drivers behind this phenomenon?
1.
Jolie's outrageous persona appeals to many women's secret desire
to rebel.
Jolie's
apparent fearlessness, her ability (and willingness) to say "fuck
you" to the Establishment and succeed anyway, appeals to many
women who have been raised to be polite and color inside the lines.
Her roles in Gia and Tomb
Raider only cemented this bad-girl image, as the larger-than-life
characters she plays in these movies match the colorful personality
she displays in real life.
In
fact, most of the characters she has played onscreen--from early
ones in movies like Hackers and Foxfire to later
roles in films like Original Sin and Gone in 60 Seconds--are
"outsiders" challenging convention. "I've
always had this kind of feeling that the clock is ticking,"
Jolie said in a Playboy Magazine interview. "Maybe
that's why I choose to live openly. I don't have any fears about
sort of throwing myself out there."
Both
onscreen and off, Jolie embodies the kind of woman many of us secretly
want to be--at least sometimes.
In
the earlier days of her career, Jolie's comments
were sometimes a little too on the starving-for-attention
side (e.g. "You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you
have knives; shit happens"). But unlike other celebrities whose
shock tactics brought them only their fifteen minutes of fame, Jolie
was able to parlay hers into a more enduring fame by backing it
up with genuine talent (Gia, Girl Interrupted)
and box office success (Tomb Raider).
"She's
like a wild stallion...running," O'Donnell writes about Jolie.
"She's the kind of person who jumps in the pool the night she
wins her Academy Award."
In
a February, 2002 Maxim interview, Angel star Charisma
Carpenter joined the list of heterosexual women who find Jolie appealing:
"If
I was forced to go with a woman, it would have to be Madonna or
Angelina Jolie. Probably Angelina. We were staying at the same
hotel recently and I bumped into her in the lobby. She looked
so beautiful and elegant that I wanted to tell her but I was too
dumbstruck. There's something deliciously mischievous about her.
It's something to do with that glint in her eye. I found myself
just staring at her but secretly I was hoping she was checking
me out."
In
April 2002, USA Today columnist Whitney Matheson did an
informal poll of readers as to who was the "coolest person
alive," and Angelina Jolie came in third. In announcing the
results, Matheson wrote "Love her or leave her, you've gotta
admit she's cool. From her enthusiasm for knives and leather pants
to her two-year marriage to Billy Bob Thornton, Angelina is the
woman of our dreams."
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