Jennifer Aniston Scolds the Celebrity Media

Jennifer Aniston turned to the all white soul cycling female editorial bastion Huffington Post to scold the shit out of gossip rags for their intrusive running commentary on her personal life. She neglected to mention the premium celebrity magazine outlets with whom she’s worked a mutually beneficial public relations campaign for the past two decades.

For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up. I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of “journalism,” the “First Amendment” and “celebrity news”.

There’s five more paragraphs about women being objectified and gossip rags playing into the subjugation game. She deftly turned the coverage of her pregnant or not-pregnant tabloid memes into a discussion of how women are diminished to creatures measured in worthy by their breeding or marriages by and to men. It was like watching the super bonus point round kick in on the pinball machine. Every bumper hit was racking up women’s equality zeitgeist points. Pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. Ding-ding-ding!

Aniston doesn’t deserve as many hypocrisy points as the celebrities who actively tease the shit out of celebrity media then bitch about the unwanted attention in Lenny essays. Yet, you don’t get to cover People magazine as the world’s most insanely beautiful and special woman of the year multiple times without playing the game. Aniston’s publicity team arranges for hyper-censored exclusive glimpses into her personal life in exchange for her publicity and exposure in leading celebrity magazines.

It’s a bullshit for bullshit trade that benefits both actress and reading material for pre-diabetics who had far grander dreams as youngsters. That very same demographic forms the audience for the second tier rags like InTouch, Us Weekly, Star, Radar, and other aggressively gossipy magazines. Unlike People and Vanity Fair and Cosmo, these check out aisle tabloids can’t get access to A-listers pollyanna coated Pablum, so they just make shit up. And that shit is usually negative. Nobody buys a magazine for its well-measured headlines. But these readers are Jennifer Aniston fans all the same. Look to the demand for content before blaming the suppliers. You’re ripping on the very people who made you rich and famous.

There is no moral high ground in the celebrity milieu. Everybody is looking to catch a break, make a buck, stay on top. It’s MMA for short good looking white people. Half the celebrities are bitching about creepy dudes shooting photos of their children, the other half are making sure their children get shot. Or they’re sharing them the very same on social media. It’s a blood sport.

Much of the press coverage is naturally gross. But nobody’s hands are clean. It’s convenient to call out the vulgarity on the tail end of a very lucrative career. Especially when you got in with the support of an established Hollywood family name. Moral crises and self-awareness in show business tends to rise in inverse proportion to the decrease in the amount of work booked. Remember when Rose McGowan in tight tank tops shot up zombies and took her check and seemed content?

Next time, don’t put the “First Amendment” in quotes. It’s helped you far more than all the yoga and skin peels.

_{Photo credit: InTouch/Star Magazine}