Angelina Jolie Celebrity Can Be

Angelina Jolie celebrity can be defined as a person who enjoys a high amount of notoriety, a socially visible individual on whom public attention and admiration, focuses on. Celebrity comes from the Latin word celeber meaning celebrated, famous ("Celebrity"), cherished. In order to be considered a celebrity, one must arouse the public's attention by doing or saying something out of the ordinary, in a positive or negative sense. Celebrity is not a permanent state. Depending on the one's ability to cleverly manage notoriety, being famous can last a second or a life time. Also, celebrity exists and can be experienced in different degrees. Thus, being famous can be a matter of local acknowledgement or a matter of global recognition. Either way, it's of less importance that you managed, as some point of your life, to catch the public's eye; what is truly admirable is the capacity to maintain yourself in the spot light, to manage to stay on top and keep your celebrity status for a lifetime, by reinventing yourself or staying the same.

Stardom is often associated with beauty and wealth, and always with being famous and living the dream. Having a famous face is although not always synonymous with having a beautiful face (or body). Usually, originality and less ordinary features are the ones who enhance the possibility of becoming famous, because the things that are special and different are more likely to be remembered and looked upon as symbols or role models. The explanation comes from the general tendency towards breaking free from routine, from uniformity and plainness. Individuals feel the need to be entertained, to be dazzled, to be saved from day-to-day issues and cliches, ordinary people hunger for out of the ordinary stories and characters that can make them feel like they are an integrated part of the fairy tale. But looks aren't everything when it comes to the making of a star. In order to earn or gain celebrity, one must perform or act in a captivating way. What one can do is as important as how one looks. Because actions speak more than a thousand words and the value of their consequences is usually more durable than beauty. That is why most celebrities are active, dynamic, socially involved people, entertainers and performers, taking upon themselves the job to makes us laugh, to make us cry, to make us help our kinds, get involved in people-oriented or nature-oriented actions, or to make us go to war. Being famous means being visible and having a great influence on individuals who look up to them, and therefore on the way they react in everyday life situations. Thus celebrity comes not only with advantages, material and of any other sort, and benefits; it also implies responsibility for public actions and public messages, and awareness of its impact on public opinion. After all, celebrities are, willingly or not, role models, especially for youngsters (given their increased impressionability and natural susceptibility to adult influence).

From celebrity to icon is just half a step, as most famous people recognized as such (actors, singers, designers or sportsmen) become much more than entertainers and performers, they become idols. The icon status implies an aurora of holiness in a sense of untouchable, idealistic, flawless. Celebrity-icon status means having fans or followers willing to absorb every drop of his/her personal manifestation, to put him/her on the highest pedestal. When a famous person is considered to be a celebrity-icon, it's fair to say he/she reaches the peak of his/her popularity, the highest level of social visibility.

As it was mentioned earlier, the biggest number of celebrities is found amongst entertainers and performers, such as actors, musicians, supermodels and designers, sportsmen and sportswomen. Their celebrity comes mostly from their power to provide fun and amusement, to amaze people, from their ability to make individuals vibrate all at once with emotion. Since before Roman times, when people gathered to the Coliseum to satisfy their appetite for bloody entertainment, individuals have been driven by their quest for thrill and excitement in the form of shows and spectacular performances that could keep them alert, aroused, amused, and always coming back for more. The adrenaline rush people feel when watching a football or a baseball game, the pleasure they get from listening a new hit from their favorite music artist, or the excitement they experience when waiting the release of the latest movie staring their favorite actor or actress, are the ones responsible for inducing the celebrity-addiction and for the continuous rise of always fresh and new intriguing figures, ready to take their place in the hall of fame.

When talking about Angelina Jolie, the first thing that comes to mind is her beautiful figure and comments related to that aspect. So we can say that Angelina Jolie is famous, firstly and especially, for her good looks. But what made Angelina Jolie a star? The answer is concordant with what has been discussed earlier. Angelina Jolie is the daughter of Oscar winning actor Jon Voight. Her journey to stardom began on the cat walk, where Jolie made her debut as a professional model, living in places like New York Los Angeles and London, before settling for a period of time in New York as a student interested in theater and acting ("Angelina Jolie Biography"). Her breakthrough came in 1999, when she won an Oscar for her supporting role as a troubled mental patient in the movie Girl, Interrupted, and truly caught the public's eye ("Angelina Jolie"). Her international fame was sealed when she played Lara Croft, the video game sexy heroine, in movies like Tomb Raider, in 2001, and Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, in 2003("Angelina Jolie"). Once her professional achievements started to shine and impress, Jolie's personal life became interesting for the public. Soon she would transform herself from a second-hand movie actress to one of the highest paid, admired and beloved (by fans) movie star in Hollywood.

If we were to analyze a statement saying that Angelina Jolie's status as an icon is undisputable, we would have to consider two possible directions of debate: on one hand, we could agree with the statement, bringing convincing arguments to sustain it; on the other hand, we could disagree and find reasons to clearly demonstrate that it is a false allegation. Another strategy would be to simply analyze the implications and consequences that spring from this generalized belief. What happened that led people to believe that Angelina Jolie is a celebrity icon, and what happens if people continue to see her that way? To argue if Angelina Jolie is or is not a celebrity icon is futile knowing that celebrities and celebrity icons are made not by reason, but by feelings. So, to start a dispute over Jolie's celebrity status and the justness of it, is less challenging than understanding and explaining the psychological and sociological implications of her given and internationally accepted status. What is truly interesting is discussing what makes people fall in love with famous people, in this case Angelina Jolie, what makes them worship celebrities and grant them iconic statuses. The world is simply dazzled by Angelina Jolie's existence, starting with her appearance, and ending with those surrounding her. Everything about her makes people stop and watch; she is the center of attention, with little competition, wherever she goes and whatever she does, whether that means adopting a child from a third world country ("Angelina Jolie Biography") or taking part to an important international event, such as World Economic Forum ("Davos Succumbs to Star Power"). If we attentively consider all the factors involved, we would notice that it's not just the beautiful physic that makes her famous and admired. it's her attitude, the way she carries herself, her self-confidence that transforms her from beautiful to sexy, from sexy to star. And that is what draws people towards Angelina Jolie, because she is no longer a normal, ordinary woman. She is a brand, a trade mark, a celebrity, that exists through her name that becomes associated with voluptuous lips, provocative curves and childish eyes, as a symbol of supreme femininity, or, in other words, an icon. That is what makes her famous, her attitude regarding herself and her attractiveness. Angelina Jolie, like most celebrities, has something that common individuals want, and that is self-confidence; this precious possession is considered to be a great quality that empowers a person, making him/her more appealing, more daring. Expressing through art, reveals an array of personal availabilities. An actor comes in front of his audience rarely, if never, under his true self. An actor takes different identities, experiences various life stories (on screen) and often make a habit out of interpreting different roles in real life situations, playing characters and speaking in phrases that are not really theirs. Thus they often appear charmingly surreal, knowingly allowing ordinary people to fantasize about stardom and celebrity-life. So, the explanation for granting Angelina Jolie a status like celebrity-icon is fascination. Common individuals see Angelina Jolie as an icon because they are fascinated by her ideal image, therefore maximizing her qualities, describing them in superlative terms, and minimizing her human flaws.

As for the implications of such celebrity-icon statuses, these can only be related to reactions and feelings of admiration, interest and even worship. The one consequence to be taken most seriously is the active influence that role models like Angelina Jolie have on the personalities of young fans, on teenagers who see in Jolie an example to be followed. This is the point where responsibility and awareness have to kick in and force Hollywood stars (and not only them) such as Angelina Jolie, to behave in public as if all eyes were on them; because, (un)fortunately, in reality all eyes are on them, putting their lives and their actions under magnifying glass.

To the questions concerning what makes a person famous and how does a celebrity become a celebrity, the answer implied fascination, originality, self-confidence, intelligent self-management and a little bit of luck, to be in the right place, at the right time, meeting the right people. The answer to the question regarding who makes a celebrity an actual icon is much simpler: common individuals, also known as media consumers. Starting from here, it's not an error to say that the ones who make you a star, can also make you a celebrity-icon or just an Average Joe back again. So, what pleases the public, what impresses it is what contributes to the making of a symbol. Being famous became too little when Angelina Jolie hooked-up with another star figure, Brad Pitt. The merge of two of the biggest sex-symbols meant the creation of a mega-sex-symbol couple and a veritable obsession for paparazzi across the world. That contributed to Jolie's celebrity-icon status, making her one of the most desired woman in the world, because she was the lover of one of the sexiest men alive (according to various polls). The relationship between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt was not just a union between a young, beautiful and wealthy woman and a young, beautiful, wealthy man. It was the merge of two brands, of two celebrity-empires, the union of two great image-made capitals. The relationship is in fact the joint venture of two symbols, benefiting both parties. Even if, the actual reason behind their getting together is love, the Jolie-Pitt relation can't be looked at as just a common, ordinary romantic union. And that is because, in the world of celebrities, nothing they do is plain, common and ordinary, as much as they would want to, sometimes. Therefore, in her relationship with Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie entered a celebrity and, due to it, became a celebrity-icon. Decided by whom? Decided by the teenage girls who sigh or sob their hear out when watching Brad Pitt in a movie or on TV, and who reached a new, considerably higher level of admiration for the one who managed to still their idol's heart. Decided also by the men who see Jolie playing characters like Lara Croft or Ms. Smith, sexually provocative women, able to set a teenager's or even an adult male's imagination on fire. Also, the ones who have a saying in this are the ones impressed by Jolie's active involvement in improving life conditions for children in Africa, and her wild-life dynamic support, by generous donations and mass media campaigns against any action that might endanger nature. Angelina's celebrity-icon status might also be decided by that segment of public who admire her action to adopt children from third world countries, thus saving them from poverty and offering them a better, more secure future. Looking at the big picture, Angelina Jolie is a fervent activist, involved in child-saving, nature-saving, people-saving actions, who plays foxy, appealing characters and dates one of the hottest sex symbols, to whom she commits to and starts a family with. She is also an Academy Award winner, with trade-mark lips and irresistible physic. The public is therefore being given all the right reasons to love and cherish Angelina Jolie, to worship her and define her as an undisputed celebrity-icon.