Brad Pitt carries Maddox while Angelina Jolie gives Zahara a lift in Mumbai last year. Photograph: AP
The only cinematic precedent for amassing children the way Angelina Jolie does is of course Mia Farrow. Jolie has just gone to Vietnam to adopt another, bringing her total brood to four, unless you count Brad Pitt, whom she adopted between Maddox and Zahara, though it wasn't strictly legit, since his birth-wife was still alive.
I am impressed by Angelina Jolie. When she was with Billy Bob Thornton, I thought she was an unconventional kind of female, on account of how she had chosen a man so obviously not for his looks. It is held to be unsisterly to steal another chick's husband, but I dispute this; only the spouse made the vow, only they can break it. And plus I was impressed by the way she carried on willy-nilly expanding her household. Oftentimes, when in thrall to a new beloved, the last thing people want to do is take on extra responsibility.
This, I think, is an interesting counterpoint to Mia Farrow; maybe it's just the blonde hair, but I've always thought of her as a bit of a flake, a bit of an old-school version of femininity, always the muse, never the main event. You can see her having three children with André Previn, then adopting some more, just to bring it up to an even, er, six, then having a tot with Woody Allen (let's not muddy the waters with what happened later), then adopting some more, then adopting some more on her own, just to make a nice, round, erm, 14... but I can't really see her rolling her sleeves up. I see her more as a hair-twiddling kind of mum. This is totally unfair, obviously. I can feel its injustice even as I revel in the compelling rightness of my mental image.
You could probably put it down to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Ironically, it was a stupid film, and it reflects nothing of Angelina's manifest political and social engagement, and she was probably only chosen for the resemblance her smams had to the fictional bristols, and yet ... it invested her with supernatural capability. You marry that to her willingness to adopt children in desperate straits, and she is a new kind of female icon. An icon that attracts all men everywhere, not by being needy but by being such a flame of passionate independence. I think I love her. I wonder if she'll adopt me.
