Baby Brangelina

A couple of years ago, I swore off ever buying another one of those glossy, graphic gossip magazines because, like that bag of chips that looks so tempting on the shelf a the corner store, I knew that after the purchase and consumption I would eventually end up feeling empty and slightly stupid.

Even though I have not actually purchased Us or People or a similar rag for several years now, I have managed to keep abreast of the events in the lives of several celebrities by reading magazines at the gym and wandering the internet: I know some of the details of the Heather Locklear-Denise Richards feud, I’ve seen Britney Spears’s various maternal mishaps and I can name the offspring of Gwyneth and Chris, Katie and Tom, Gwen and Gavin, and now Brad and Angelina.

But it wasn’t until the birth of Shiloh Nouvel and the subsequent interview that “Brangelina” gave in Namibia, thanking the country for hosting the birth, that the complete weirdness of our culture’s obsession with the lives of famous people really hit me.


Here are two parents, one a UN Goodwill ambassador, who have just sold their newborn pictures for over $4 million (the money will be given to charity) and are now discussing the birth in a country where the infant mortality rate is 48.1 in 1000 births (compare to 4.69 in Canada). And this is major news.

It just seems such an odd thing to hold an almost “press conference” about the birth of a child. But, as celebrity magazine sales show (and column inches in respected newspapers around the world exhibit), we want to know about the exploits of those in the public eye.

Now if I could only swear off the chips…