Tabloid fun: Brad Pitt stolen

Judging from the cover story on the latest Us Weekly—not that I've read it but while we were in the drug store over the weekend I saw the cover while in the checkout counter—it's pretty easy to see who the editors believe is their audience. The cover features side-by-side photos of Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston and the blurb: "How She Stole Brad."

They're coming down squarely on the side of the poor-Jen faction, who, by inference empathize with her girl-next-door image. She'd nabbed the sometime "sexiest man alive" and then the cool sexpot with brains (Jolie) came along and plucked him away.

Basically, it's appealing to the average woman's subconscious fear that her husband will leave her for someone hotter.

Because, of course, Brad Pitt (and by inference, all men) is a rube with no ability to exert any control over himself, and a perfectly happy marriage can be broken up with modest feminine wiles. It's just that simple.

(Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them.)

There's no way that a man would choose to stay with a woman with whom he is happy if someone who is prettier comes along and decides she wants him. I mean, duh.

Celebrities: They're just like us, and by implication we're just like them. Except unworthy of being on the cover of magazines, what with our marriages not being talked about by Billy Bush. How dull.


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All Angelina needs to be sympathetic to the average woman is for Brad to be stolen away by someone else.

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Or perhaps all these women are envious that their "Friend" Jennifer Aniston got Brad Pit and by proxy that suggested these women might have had a chance at getting Brad. Would the average reader of Us Weekly leave her husband for Mr. Pitt if he was willing to leave Angelina for her?

Would they fall for douchebag John Mayer instead perhaps? Apparently having Brad stolen away can drive one to that.

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Appealing to innate female insecurities is a sure way to sell tabloids. There's no quibbling with that.