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We need to find a new word for celebrity, and quick. Because this week has clearly illustrated that the term is no longer sufficient. It's too broad, applying to the sublime and the ridiculous simultaneously.
The word has been stretched to breaking point, expanding to ensnare the frivolous and vulgar along with the talented and relevant. It's so bloated and spent that it's about to snap. And so it should.
You see, I do not believe that Angelina Jolie and Kim Kardashian should be categorised under the same banner. It is insulting, like comparing a Nobel prize with Teen Choice award. Honey Boo Boo with Henry Kissinger. Nelson Mandela with Ricky Nixon.
AdvertisementNot getting where I'm coming from? Just turn on your TV or jump on the net. This week I did both, which tipped me into a trough of trite - ''celebrities'' the Kardashian sisters sniffing each others' vaginas on their TV show to determine whose smells sweeter; Brynne Edelsten shivering in a wet swimsuit on the gormless Celebrity Splash; and yet more morbidly obese contestants humiliated on that abominable bully-fest The Biggest Loser.
All the above come under the banner of another word that needs serious updating - news. The vacuous and vain are sucking up valuable airtime and column inches, leaving us empty as a result.
Thankfully, amid the puerile inanity of excremental television, singing haircuts and reality harlots there was some redemption with the pairing of celebrity and news this week. It came in the form of Angelina Jolie's considerate, candid and constructive article in The New York Times, and reproduced in these pages, on her decision to undergo an elective double mastectomy.
It was a message resonating in warmth, honesty and concern. It was a celebration of the love of her partner and children and a note of gratitude for her good fortune. It was another example of admirable behaviour from a woman who is not going to waste the impressive power of her ''celebrity'' on shampoo commercials and fluffy chitchat. It was the action of an evolved, wise and centred woman balancing extraordinary privilege with benevolence.
Which is why I will take on anyone who tries to dismiss Jolie as another oxygen-thief actor full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Forget about her career and looks; this woman has a soul. (Many will argue with me that I am not a sister for championing Jolie; that she ''stole'' another woman's husband. Well, I don't believe men can be stolen. They are not inanimate objects.)
Only a particularly diehard cynic would believe Jolie's humanitarian efforts are a publicity stunt. Just look at what she has crammed into the past decade. It is impressive, inspiring and humbling. It's a long list but worth taking in.
Angelina has been active with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in more than 30 countries - always covering her own costs and sharing the same rudimentary conditions as UNHCR field staff. She's been an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum and has met with members of the United States Congress at least 20 times, lobbying for bills to aid refugees and vulnerable children in the Third World. She founded the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation to promote environmental conservation in Cambodia, and a daycare facility for children affected by HIV.
With Brad Pitt she created the Jolie-Pitt Foundation aiding humanitarian causes worldwide, and co-partnered the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, educating those affected by man-made or natural disasters. Then there's her work with Kids in Need of Defense, a pro bono movement of law firms, corporate law departments, non-government organisations and volunteers committed to providing legal counsel to unaccompanied immigrant children. Oh, and the Jolie Legal Fellows Program, which recruits lawyers to support child protection efforts in Haiti. Plus the innumerable direct-from-pocket donations to victims of Hurricane Katrina and numerous other international and urgent catastrophes, sums always in the millions.
Angelina has given three adopted children a loving home and education and is the biological mother of another three. She doesn't wear a Third World country's deficit on her back every time she steps out for an ice-cream, even though she can afford to. She rarely appears to wear make-up unless she's at work being a movie star. I don't know her diet tips, only that she is acutely aware she is lucky to be able to eat well.
Jolie's decision to reduce her chance of getting breast cancer from 87 per cent risk to less than 5 per cent after being diagnosed as carrying a mutated BRCA1 gene is heroic. Her decision to go public about it will save countless women's lives.
Angelina, to me, is more than a world-class beauty, she is a world-class citizen. Her caste is everyman, despite its surreal circumstance. She is a celebrity actually worthy of celebration. This woman deserves a term of her own and it ain't celebrity. It's also not saint - she'd be the first to admit that. Perhaps the word should be solid; Angelina Jolie is a solidbrity. She is a rare example of the grounded rising above the flighty in a self-absorbed society, and I can't applaud, admire and thank her enough.
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