Why Angelina Jolie’s NY Times Op-Ed Matters

To start off, I love me some Angelina Jolie. She’s perhaps the only actress I will line up opening day to see, she’s incredibly sexy, a great celebrity whose life is endlessly fascinating, and she’s extremely philanthropic. In short she’s this generation’s Elizabeth Taylor and we all stand in awe of her. Yesterday, she released an op-ed in the NY Times speaking about how she arrived at the decision to have preventative double mastectomy surgery after taking a test that revealed she had the gene for breast and ovarian cancer. She speaks at length in the article about her mother who died from the disease, her children asking her if she would have the same fate and her partner Brad Pitt sticking by her side. Angie ends the piece by talking about how women should be proactive in their health as well as subtly critiquing the health care system for the cost of this test. 

I have long had an admiration for Angelina Jolie and the more I think about this piece the more she grows in my estimation. Here is a movie star who regardless of tabloid reporting, has been living a really quiet life, coming forward and speaking about an intensely personal issue to try to raise awareness about the need for women to be more preventative with their health. And she managed to do all of that in a non-condescending way instead relating to a universal concept of life. Mortality is an interesting thing in that it forces us to really take stock of what is important. I’m sure Angie, Brad, and her basketball team of children live as normal a life as possible, but it’s incredibly rare that you get this kind of discussion from a celebrity. This was a cognizant choice made by Jolie that would force her to undergo something extremely serious to possibly prevent this. She should be commended for detailing her experiences and sharing them with us.

I love that she addressed the issue of her femininity in the article. For women, outward sexuality is such an important concept and especially for a celebrity who was managed to trade on that beauty, this was perhaps the most daunting thing of all. Never forget this is one of the few women who can sell a movie with her face or body on a poster, and we’re long past our CrazySexyCool Angie days. She might be a beautiful woman with strong character, but in getting your breasts and ovaries removed you are removing the biological things that tie you to womanhood. I can’t fathom going into the doctor and having them tell me I have to have my testicles removed. As much as we love to talk about how self-worth is drawn from what’s on the inside, the removal of physical attributes is a daunting prospect for any gender and the fact that Angie saw fit to tell us about it AND say that she doesn’t feel any less of a person is the attitude we should all be taking.

This article has garnered a lot of praise but also a lot of scorn. Celebrity is a fickle thing, people want you to be deified but will not hesitate to rip you shreds regardless of what you do, but I, for one, don’t get this asinine critique of Jolie’s privilege that seems to be going around. Angelina Jolie has never not been a privileged white woman. She was born to movie star parents, she’s been married to movie stars, but furthermore she’s earned her damn success through winning an Oscar and anchoring blockbusters. But what does that have to do with the price of having a test to say you need your breasts removed? Yes she has easier access to more costly health care by virtue of her bank account but to reduce an extremely personal decision and brave admission to monetary value is extremely reductive. I think it’s incredibly foolish to critique her being of the privilege to have access to this when she’s dropping lines like this:

Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live. The cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obstacle for many women.

What about that is her flaunting her privilege? If anything she’s critiquing the hell out of the health care system, something she can do because of her privilege. As someone who has a family member who has had breast cancer, I can tell you that had my cousin or someone in the family been wealthy enough to have this test and prevent the years of hospital visits, pain, surgeries, heart transplants, and stress we would have done that test in a heart beat, but I sure as shit don’t hate Angie because she did it. In fact, I had never even heard of this test until she brought it up. She had a surgery that reduced her risk of dying like her mother from 87% to 5%. I need someone to raise their hand to say they wouldn’t do the same thing. I refuse to dismiss her experience as one of no relevance and you shouldn’t either. These are real life situations that regular people and celebs face and each should be treated with respect and compassion.