Work got up: Why is everyone so worried about the divorce of Jolie and Pitt
Sasha Savina
"This is the end of an era," Adele said at a concert yesterday. about the separation of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. “If a couple with millions of dollars, six children and their own brand rose, the price of which is clearly overpriced, did not work out, we can only surrender,” writes comedian Joanna Hausmann. BuzzFeed, meanwhile, publishes a collection of tweets and memes on the topic, newspapers come out with headlines like "No More Love," and social networks fill tasteless jokes about how Brad Pitt's ex-wife Jennifer Aniston responded to the gap of the couple.
The tabloids and reputable publications are building up whole theories about the couple’s break-up: Brad cheated on her with Marion Cotillard, because their new film is practically the historical version of “Mr. Pitt is a bad father, and Angelina is not ready to entrust him with her children; he uses marijuana; she suffers from anorexia, and so on and so forth.
In Jennifer Aniston, the world sees the archetypal image of a wife, from which her husband went to a younger colleague. In social networks they believe that the actress should certainly rejoice at the break up of the former - despite the fact that they broke up more than ten years ago, during this time Aniston married Justin Theroux and made a successful career, starring in many films. Of course, the public separation was painful for Aniston (“I would be a robot if I said I didn’t feel anger, pain, and shame at times,” she admitted in an interview with Vanity Fair in 2005), but why years after the marriage with Brad Pitt still considered the only significant event in her life? And most importantly, why do we so keenly react to the news about the disbanding marriage of celebrities and it seems to all of us as if we know how all the participants feel?
"As a rule, we attach to a famous person as an idealized figure of a parent or partner, and sometimes as our own," says counselor, group leader and writer Adriana Imge. Psychologists Donald Horton and Richard Wol in 1956 introduced the term "parasocial relations" - they describe one-sided relations of people with their idols or fictional characters, when a person has a feeling of connection with someone with whom he is not really familiar. In their opinion, new technologies only reinforce this phenomenon. “One of the most striking features of the new media — radio, television, and cinema — is that they give us a sense of a close relationship with the actors,” they wrote in Psychiatry magazine. “People perceive the most distant and well-known people as if they belong to a close circle his friends; this is true for the characters of the stories that come to life in this media. " These feelings are familiar to many of us: remember how many people cried because of the death of Princess Diana, how many watched the broadcast of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding live, to feel at least a little involved in the event, and how much everyone worried about the death of john snow.
Adele, "one 2 hour of misery," to "Brangelina." "End of an era." pic.twitter.com/uNOtfbc8wK
- Jacob Bernstein (@BernsteinJacob) September 21, 2016
Speaking of celebrities, we imagine how you would feel in their place. That is why, after the separation of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, the world divided into "Jen's Team" and "Angie's Team": one was easier to sympathize with the wife who left her husband, others - the woman who fell in love with someone else's spouse. Hence the attempts to gloat ("That's right for her!"), And manifestations of empathy ("The perfect marriage broke up"), and fear for themselves and their relationships ("Even if Beyonce and Jay Z have problems, what should the others do?" ) - discussing episodes from the life of stars, we rely primarily on our own experience and our own feelings.
Social networks even more than television and glossy magazines, give us a sense of involvement in the lives of celebrities. If earlier we looked at paparazzi photos to see our favorite stars in the "real" light, then now we can follow them in instagram and snapshot and watch live broadcasts on Facebook. Social networks create the illusion that we watch celebrities 24/7 and see everything that happens with them - and although we know that each photo is carefully selected and is certainly coordinated with the producer (remember Adel, who asked the managers to make sure that she did not tweet drunk on twitter), it still seems to us that the life of favorite stars looks like this.
We do not think about what remains “behind the scenes” and idealize the lives and relationships of celebrities. "Many celebrities are very similar to Greek heroes and gods: powerful, beautiful, have an interesting story and at the same time - alive, emotional, vulnerable. And, of course, surrounded by myths," says Adriana Imge. "Once joined them, people get a foothold and support. " The stories of star couples are almost the love stories of the 21st century, the fairy tale that came to life, the very “They lived happily ever after,” the best illustration of which is the cover of Vanity Fair.
I love you to give it a bottle of wine
- Joanna Hausmann (@Joannahausmann) September 20, 2016
"Relations with a distant person are wonderful: he is perfect, powerful, with one hand movement would solve a lot of problems of his fan, he is safe - he will not come to beat the windows in your apartment and lie on your carpet - and make it possible to live an interesting, beautiful and bright life without leaving from home, ”says Adriana Imzh.“ And when something heavy happens in a celebrity’s life, the tale of an ideal life collapses, her fans can worry more than their friends, because they too “participate” in the life of this person and can perceive his troubles are like ou or its parent, partner or close friend. The magic of the merger. "
Divorces in our world are not uncommon - according to the Federal State Statistics Service, in 2015 there were 4.2 divorces for every thousand people in Russia. In the US, this figure is higher: in 2014, for every thousand people, there were 6.9 divorces. It would seem that this is a common phenomenon - each of us has acquaintances who have survived adultery or divorce - but in the case of celebrities, we sometimes cannot even imagine that "ideal" people also have problems. And when it does happen, we experience a whole range of feelings - from the desire to deny (“This will never happen to me!”) To complacency and self-affirmation (“If this happens even with them, then everything is not so bad”) .
To sympathize and empathize with those whom we do not really know is a common thing: without this art would be impossible, charity would become less popular. In a world where every step of a celebrity is documented, it is impossible not to think out who he is, what his character is and how his relationships with people are built. The main thing is not to forget at the same time that in an ideal way there is a person - the same as all of us.
Photo: Vladimir Voronin - adobe.stock.com