Oh for the days when you could wander through life happily unaware that every second person thought you were a horse’s ass. Life used to be simpler for the sort of pompous fat-head who uses phrases such “your current correspondent” (your current correspondent, for instance).
If people wanted to point out your conspicuous failings, they were required to pick up a phone and adopt the tone of an outraged biddy in a 1950s Hollywood comedy. “Oh, the nerve of that Angelina Whatsername?” you and your fruit-covered hat would say from one corner of a comically split screen. “She only run off with Mrs Fincher’s boy.”
Who would be Angelina Jolie?
The money, acclaim, pulchritudinous and suave husband all offer some compensation, of course. But an awareness of those advantages only spurs enemies into greater paroxysms of fury.
North Korean factor
These thoughts are triggered by the extraordinary aftermath of the recent computer hack into Sony Pictures. This is one of those stories that can’t stop giving. The initial suggestion that a branch of the North Korean secret service was behind the attack kept geopolitical analysts busy for days.
The notoriously oppressive state got itself into an apoplectic rage about an upcoming Sony movie named The Interview, which finds the CIA encouraging two US reporters to assassinate Kim Jong-un. Challenged about the enormous leak of information, a North Korean official coyly urged the world to "wait and see".
Later, when waiting and seeing brought evidence that a group named the Guardians of Peace were responsible, the state’s spokespeople slipped back into their default rhetoric of Stalinist bluster and Bond villain insanity.
At time of writing, the FBI could not confirm or rule out any connection between GOP (a resonant acronym in the USA) and the North Korean security apparatus.
We then had to wade through a few more stories about the lax standards of digital security at Sony. (It seems that thousands of passwords were stored in a directory named “Password”.)
The news that upcoming films such as Annie and Still Alice were available online triggered a few spurts of schadenfreude from competitors. But all of this was still a little dry.
Where was the celebrity crap we crave?
Thank heavens for the punchily titled Defamer website. Contributors to that organ waded through many thousands of emails before happening upon the internet’s equivalent of a Higgs Boson: influential people saying nasty things about Angelina Jolie.
The quotes emerged during a long bust-up between producer Scott Rudin and Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal. The two were working on a biopic of Steve Jobs that they hoped David Fincher would direct. Then Jolie allegedly lured Fincher away to work on her Cleopatra project. Later still, she moved off to work on her upcoming, true-life second World War film Unbroken.
To be fair (if that’s the word) Rudin and Pascal are perfectly capably of being horrible to each other’s digital faces. “You don’t deserve one exhalation of breath on your behalf. You’ve behaved abominably and it will be a very, very long time before I forget what you did,” Rudin barked at Pascal.
“Don’t f***ing threaten me,” she later responded.
All very colourful. But who cares about business people?
As far as most of us are concerned, you may as well print gossip about warehouse managers or dry cleaning magnates.
It was the Angelina stuff that really got the wires buzzing.
“There is no movie of Cleopatra to be made (and how that is a bad thing given the insanity and rampaging ego of this woman and the cost of the movie is beyond me),” Rudin wrote.
More biting still, he referred to her as “a minimally talented spoiled brat”.
Ms Jolie has taken her share of abuse. In the years since Pitt’s breakup with Jennifer Aniston, the supermarket tabloids have constructed an endless soap opera – “Jen’s midnight calls to Brad!” – whose supposed twists have all the veracity of fallings out in the world of professional wrestling.
Yet, there is an especially cutting quality to these leaked quotes.
Rubin has worked with Jolie. He swims in the same waters. We assume he has, on many occasions, smiled generously while grasping her well-manicured fingers.
Welcome to the leaky, insecure world of 21st century communication.
Who has not accidentally texted the subject of a spiteful remark or unseemly piece of gossip?
How many of us have happened upon emails telling third parties unhappy truths about our character?
Blogs tell lies about us. Comments areas in newspapers clog up with abuse.
Yes indeed. It used to be so much more fun being a jerk.
Not that Angelina is any sort of jerk.
She and her lawyers are brilliant.