inciting punters to pick a side. The ‘Team Aniston’
print outsold ‘Team Jolie’ 25-1.
Of course, there’s no greater emblem of Jen’s mass
appeal than ‘the Rachel’ – a layered lob inspired by
her Friends character that became the most heavily
requested female haircut of the ’90s. Never mind
that Rachel Green herself only wore her hair this
way for the show’s rst season, which aired in 1994.
Today, Jen remains a marketer’s dream. In 2018,
Elle.com reported on a survey by US-based
consumer-engagement agency The Marketing Arm,
which ranked public awareness and attitudes toward
celebrities. Based on a survey of 1000 US consumers,
94% were aware of Jen and 91% of those found her
appealing. In a database of more than 4000 public
gures, this placed her third in the female category- just behind Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton.
A golden goose for corporations, Jen’s
marketability has earned her huge endorsement
deals with mass-market brands from Aveeno to Diet
Coke – each contributing to her net worth of $300
million. According to Forbes, the third highest paid
lm actress in 2018 – down from second highest in
2017 – allegedly makes $30 million a year off a
Friends syndication deal alone. Incidentally, this sum
is equivalent to ex-husband Justin’s entire net worth,
fuelling the rumour that pre-nup negotiations were
partly to blame for their three-year engagement.
‘Poor Jen’? Hardly. So why is this a label she just
can’t shake?
My busting
H
ere are the facts: Jen is an ostensibly
healthy, heterosexual woman of child-
bearing age who has been married twiceto ostensibly healthy, heterosexual men of child-
rearing age. She has the resources to bring a child
into the world in any way, shape, or form, and to
support it thereafter. Godmother to Courteney
Cox’s daughter Coco, and an instigator of ‘Sunday
Fundays’ at her house in Malibu (“My friends come
over with their kids and we huddle down while
they jump around in the pool”), she by all accounts
loves kids. When pressed on the subject, she’s never
ruled out the possibility of having her own. And
make no mistake, the pressing has been relentless.
Here are some more facts: Katharine Hepburn.
Helen Mirren. Oprah. Ellen. All ostensibly are (or
were) capable of carrying children and are (or were)
childless. So, too, are plenty of Jen’s contemporaries:
Cameron Diaz. Renée Zellweger. Ashley Judd. Hilary
Swank. Don’t get us started on Leonardo DiCaprio.
“I think it’s because Jen represents an archetype for
us as a culture,” said a colleague in January, proffering
that Jen’s not having procreated only jars so much
because it’s at odds with her ‘every girl’ image.
Think of it this way. Katharine Hepburn was
masculine – an intellectual. Helen Mirren is tough
as nails. “I didn’t care what people thought,” Helen
once said on the subject of being childless in her 50s.
“It was only boring old men [who’d ask me]. And
whenever they went, ‘Better get on with it, old girl,’
I’d say, ‘No! F**k off!’” Elsewhere, Oprah is so much
of an empire she’s often viewed as less maternal,
more machine. Ellen, being gay, isn’t expected to
conform to heteronormative ideals. And those other
actresses, famous and talented as they are, were never
half of a Hollywood golden couple. When Brad and
Jen’s union crumbled, and along with it the fairytale
ending, so too did our fantasy. The end of their
marriage disrupted the narrative we’d built around
the golden girl and her equally golden guy. »Clockwise from above: Jen with co-producer
and co-star Reese Witherspoon ahead of The
Morning Show’s preview; performing with
Adam Sandler in Murder Mystery; with
her Friends buddy Courteney Cox.A golden goose for
corporations, Jen’s
marketability has earned
her huge endorsement deals
with mass-market brands
SEPTEMBER 2019 / NEXT 25
COVER STORY