Individual 20th 21st Century. (Angelina Jolie) Obtain

¶ … individual 20th 21st century. (Angelina Jolie) Obtain faculty approval selection prior beginning

Analyzing Angelina

There are several different facets of Angelina Jolie's life that make for a quite compelling probe into her psychological development. Jolie, one of the most well-known and bankable female actresses of the 21st century, has endured a variety of issues pertaining to aspects of her emotional and moral development that can be traced back to relationships, events, and occurrences in a life that has been filled with notoriety ever since her birth. An analysis of the most eminent of these factors reveals that the actress's hereditary influences appear to have mitigated those of her environment -- although both spheres of influence are quite prominent and represented by the culmination of her experiences. The effects of Jolie's family -- and in particular her relationship with her parents and her mother who was primarily responsible for raising her -- have proven to have had a profound impact on the actress's life, as an examination of a pair of personality theories succinctly demonstrates.

In many ways, Jolie's heredity explains her meteoric rise to fame and stardom as an actresses fairly simply. Both of her parents were actors, her brother James, is an actor, and her godparents Jacqueline Bisset and Maximilian Shell are actors as well. Her choice to join the family business and to pursue a career in front of the camera is not surprising due to the strong hereditary ties and proclivities for people in her clan to act. Yet on another far more introspective and emotional level, the specific influence of Jolie's family was quite profound on her emotional development. Her parent's relationship with one another, and that which subsequently followed with her, was tumultuous and placed the child, who was only one-year-old at the time that her parents separated due to her father Jon Voight's infidelities (Poole, 2002), in a state of emotional (and even some physical) insecurity as a result.

The actress turned to her mother, who raised her and James alone without Jon, as the basis for her social support system which seemed to have the greatest impact on her emotional development. Jolie has attributed her choice of career to her mother's influence, particularly since the latter made a point of taking her daughter to the cinema from the time that she was a young girl. And it was due to her mother's permission that the actress was allowed to live with her boyfriend -- for a period of approximately two years -- when she was 14 years old (Kasle, 2003). This experience certainly affected her emotional development and perception of romantic relationships and the feelings they engender. Perhaps even more noteworthy is the fact that emotionally, Jolie unequivocally sided with her mother and against her father regarding their separation, for the simple fact that her father's infidelities were responsible for their failed union.

The emotional ramifications of these facets of Jolie's childhood are best gauged and analyzed through a pair of respective theories of personality -- that of biological theory and that of psychodynamic theory. Although there are inherent similarities between both of these theories, each offers a slightly different lens with which to psychoanalyze Jolie's childhood and ensuing adulthood. The basic tenet of biological theory is that personality is widely attributed to genetics. This theory nicely explains the fact that Jolie turned to a career as an actress -- much as everyone else in her family was either an actress or an actor. Additionally, certain facets of her personal life -- her proclivity for romantic relationships, for instance, can be explained via this theory. Her parents divorced, and Jolie has had a number of failed relationships with males, beginning with the one she initiated when she was 14. She experience many of the same emotional highs and lows that her parents did while going through two divorces prior to her current relationship with Brad Pitt -- which she has yet to consummate via marriage. Biological theory explains these occurrences as merely a continuance of and reflection of the actresses genes.