9) Angelina Jolie
I’m realizing how few women I’ve included on this list. I think it might be because there’s less tolerance for difficult women in show business, and perhaps business in general. There’s a higher bar for women to clear traditionally, that to really succeed they have to go above and beyond. Any excuse for powerful dudes to deny women something in this environment, they generally take. So female stars have to respond to demands to be exceptional in their personal dealings and in their projected persona. This is unfair, obviously. Men who are crazy get cast as “eccentric” while comparable women are just insane divas who are impossible to work with.
It may be that exceptions prove the rule, and if so, Angelina Jolie is exceptional. I don’t care about much of her tabloid exploits involving Jennifer and Brad and whatever the hell that’s all about. Making her into this vixen to whom the helpless puppy of a man could not resist just seems misogynistic to me, and if it’s not clear enough, I’m trying really hard to not be sexist here. But while I think Jolie is absolutely brilliant in A Mighty Heart and Changeling, she seems hopelessly self-righteous to me as a person. I mean, all this humanitarian work and UN advocacy? Stop making me feel bad about myself. I have a hard time accepting moral guidance from someone who married Billy Bob Thornton.