The Manila Times: Blame it on Angelina

Angelina Jolie played eerie and semi-deranged roles as a supermodel who died of AIDS, Gia, and a mentally disturbed drug addict in “Girl Interrupted” and won for an Oscar for the latter role.

Her personal life was as intriguing, if not more so, than her celebrity status. She and an ex-husband bought each other burial plots, went around with vials of each other’s blood around their necks and described their sex as so hot and rough that it made them almost want to kill each other. When she was awarded an Oscar, she and her brother kissed on the mouth in front of millions of viewers.

At the height of her career, when she popularized riding a big bike in skintight spandex as Lara Croft and being pounded with tattoos, she went off and decided to adopt a baby from a developing country. Even the United Nations saw her in a different light and made her an ambassador for human rights.

Previously on the cover of Vogue and Cosmopolitan as a femme fatale, her face became the cover of other mommy magazines like Good Housekeeping. She talked openly about being both a single girl and a mother and her own “Angelina” way of balancing the two.

Since this was her pre-Brad era, she disclosed that after imposing a nooky ban for one year, she lifted it and had occasional sex with men she considered her friends and who would understand her need for physical release without necessarily judging her or wanting more from her. And just like that, it seemed like being a single mom wasn’t seen as having “baggage”—baby baggage and emotional baggage—but hot.

Angelina solidified, re-defined and personified a new kind of single mother; one who didn’t need a man to have a baby or walk around mine fields. Of course, there will always be the MILF stereotypes to fight against, which not even Angelina can de-bunk. The most common one being that single moms are easy lays, climbing the walls in their state of emotional and sexual starvation.

My friend Marlene, who was a single mom for close to a decade before her wedding, told me, “When I got pregnant at 20, a lot of people told me that it would lessen my chances of getting married or even finding a boyfriend. But you know, there were still a lot of guys who came along.”

Marlene said that at some point, it became liberating to be a single mom. She wasn’t looking for something or someone else to make her life complete which, as she got older, made her different from all her other female friends who were on the mad rush to beat the biological clock.

Men found it both parts intriguing and intimidating—a woman was independent and secure enough to not need a man to complete her life. Or more importantly, took a que sera sera view on it. If a guy came along, then it would be great, but if not, she still had her child to fill her life.

May be there is really something potent about the single mom thing. Marlene, much to the chagrin of other single ladies, bagged quite a catch. A nice, intelligent and successful gentleman, after their second meeting, told her she was “The One.” And this guy was 100 percent single—again, much to the chagrin of the other single ladies.

And, of course, there is Angelina who snagged the hottest man in the world. After meeting her and her son, he just packed up and left his wife with the girl-next-door image.

But perhaps it wasn’t the single motherhood per se that made these women (more) attractive to these men who could have just about any woman they wanted.

May be it was their refusal to cower to the popular notion that being a single mom is like walking around with scarlet letters on your chest: Damaged goods. No longer a virgin. May be it was their being less self-centered because of their responsibilities; or maybe it was their resilience.

I have a feeling Brad and Marlene’s husband will say the same thing though. It’s the confidence and quiet strength of being a single mom that makes their respective partners not just hot . . . but beautiful.