should we talk about brad pitt?

for a second?

It is a rare day on the Internet that I don't feel like I'm living in an entirely different universe from a large subset of the general population. Over the last few years, I have felt this way about Brad Pitt, who remains, to many of my friends, colleagues, loose acquaintances, and family members, a welcome presence on the screen, magazines, and culture at large.

And I get it. The man has a great PR team. He's Brad Pitt and to many folks, that still means something. People like to feel a certain kind of way about someone who's been starring in their favorite and favorite-adjacent movies for decades. See, also: Tom Cruise, who

Marion Teniade

has written about—well and extensively—recently and who I, to my unending chagrin, still hold a soft spot for.

With Cruise, though, I feel like we all know he's crazy (see: Scientology; Nicole Kidman; Katie Holmes; the man's suspicious aversion to staying alive), and we're making allowances for it because he is, at the very least, Dedicated to Saving the Movies™.

Little screenshot from Interview with the Vampire (1994). And if I told you that Cruise outacted Pitt on every single scene? And if I did that? Then what???

When it comes to Pitt, though, there's this sort of willful obliviousness to his past behavior. We're all wearing our little blinders, and it's so odd to me. It's like most people don't even know about the private jet incident that required the FBI's involvement.

The records include an interview summary in which Jolie purportedly told FBI officials that Pitt yelled at her, “grabbed her by her head,” shook her, “pushed her into the bathroom wall” and repeatedly punched the ceiling of the plane during an initial outburst about 90 minutes into the private jet flight that departed France and made a pitstop in Minnesota before eventually landing in Los Angeles on Sept. 14, 2016.

Jolie said Pitt’s actions frightened the couple’s six children, who ranged in age from 8 to 15 at the time. When one of the kids allegedly called Pitt a “prick,” he bolted at the minor “like he was going to attack,” the paperwork states. At that point, Jolie “jumped up” and grabbed Pitt round his neck with her arms, “like in a choke hold,” according to the report summarizing Jolie’s version of events. Pitt purportedly threw himself back, pushing Jolie into the seats behind them, causing injury to her back and elbow, she told investigators. (Rolling Stone)

Although Angelina Jolie filed for divorce in 2016 and the marriage dissolution was granted back in 2019, their divorce became a drawn-out affair, finalizing only in December 2024. When asked about this last step for GQ last week, Pitt said: “No, I don’t think it was that major of a thing. Just something coming to fruition. Legally.”

Which, like, ok. Sure. I bet. Reports do very much point to Pitt being the one delaying this fruition from taking place, but sure. I'm glad he's chill!

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P.S. This is slightly unrelated, but I simply have to note this little excerpt from the aforementioned GQ profile:

At one point, I interrupt Bruckheimer and Kosinski during their 7 p.m. “lunch” break. “Ah, we’re just bullshitting,” Bruckheimer says. Given their shared experience on Top Gun, I ask, how is this movie different if it’s Cruise instead of Pitt? “Tom always pushes it to the limit, but at the same time is super capable and very skilled,” Kosinski says. “They both have the natural talent for driving. But yeah, I could see Tom maybe scaring us a little bit more.”

This is probably the most interesting way to call someone (Pitt) sauceless. A movie star should scare you! They are not like us!

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So then we have the art v. artist thing. And I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of that whole debate. Michael Jackson is literally playing in the cafe where I’m editing this, not to mention that it's June, and the subject is of more of a winter discussion. But the funny thing is, with Brad Pitt, we don't even seem to be having the conversation. We don't want to engage with it. Either people are wholly ignoring/ignorant of the fact that he's got some pretty damnable recent history in the literal record, or they don't care.

Few people have traded more successfully into their 90s cultural relevance than Brad Pitt. And we're letting him do it. With these fawning profiles and thirst tweets and fancams. We should consider stopping. Bring self-respect into the conversation.

Because there's also a bit of misogyny involved, isn't there? Many have been the people I've spoken with who, because they don't have a favorable opinion of Angelina Jolie (a diva, a bitch, aloof, generally strange and off-putting), don't particularly care if she was mistreated or abused by Pitt. Which is ... not great! I'm not even going to get into Jolie's Good Person bonafides, because it actually shouldn't matter. There are so many women I don't like, mostly because there are so many people I don't like, and I don't wish harm upon them! What happened to being a kind asshole? There used to be so many of us. I hate being part of a dying species.

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And listen, I hate to bring up Tom Cruise again, really I do, but at least with him we understand that enjoying his filmography is a bit of a guilty pleasure, no? Like, when I watch Ethan Hunt do his little stunts I'm like oh this man is crazy but boy can he jump from Point A to Point B. And that's not even taking into account the deep love the man carries for Film™ and popcorn. Meanwhile, with all due respect, Pitt's best work is his line reading of "you think that's a Schwinn" from Burn After Reading (2008). (It's Clooney and Co. who carry the Ocean's franchise, and don't you forget it.)

Anyway, as always it's a bit of a bummer to realize most people don't really give a fuck. :)

I get that it's hard to acknowledge that someone you admire(d) might be, at best, an idiot. It feels like a personal failing, almost. We watch these people on our screens and their cultural output becomes part of our lives in a way with which it's difficult to part.¹ To quote Ja Rule, we feel "hustled, scammed, bamboozled, hood winked, lead astray" (sic) by celebrities whose actions we discover don't reflect the personalities and characteristics we, through our consumption of their work, projected upon them. Sorry to us, I guess.

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Shania Twain (who also has a great PR team because in 2018 she gave an interview (for which she later apologized) saying if she were American—she's Canadian—she'd probably have voted for Trump and boy, has that been buried!) told us we shouldn't be so impressed by Brad Pitt. Let's celebrate and remember that.

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1. This is why American soft power, btw, is so impactful. The fact that Sesame Street and Top Gun reach audiences around the world is a boon to American hegemony, whatever you might think about that, and the fact that Trump's Office of Management and Budget is crying about a paltry $3M budget for "Iraqi Sesame Street" is not just vile—it reveals a stunning misunderstanding of the many means of exerting influence abroad.