Angelina Jolie Gives Birth To Twins?

I’m still channeling BDJ…

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2008026214_celebbabies01.html

Celeb babies: Easy escapism in hard times

They can’t club-hop till dawn, frolic on Miami Beach or check into a $1,700-a-day rehab facility, but they’ve overcome all those disadvantages…

By Nara Schoenberg
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — They can’t club-hop till dawn, frolic on Miami Beach or check into a $1,700-a-day rehab facility, but they’ve overcome all those disadvantages in their crawl to the top.

Celebrity babies are hot, hot, hot.

With bidding for exclusive photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s unborn twins reaching a reported $15 million, gossip magazines running the latest news on their daughter Shiloh’s potty training and temper tantrums (Nanny tells all!), People granting cover-story status to new moms ranging from the famously thin (Nicole Richie) to the downright obscure (”Full House’s” Jodie Sweetin), and blogs such as Celebrity Baby Scoop and Babyrazzi delivering the latest in milestone moments, we’re a nation on a first-name basis with the offspring of the rich and famous.

“Celebrities are much bigger than they were three years ago, so [interest in] every aspect of their lives has increased, and along with that is babies,” says Dina Sansing, entertainment director of Us Weekly.

All of which raises an obvious question: Why? Why do we suddenly care so much about the blankets-and-binkies set?

Part of the story is the star power of the parents. The publicity firestorm over the April 2006 birth of Suri Cruise, the daughter of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, had yet to die down when we got the first photos of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, courtesy of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

Before that we had the birth of Julia Roberts’ twins, the adoption of Zahara Jolie-Pitt, and the long-awaited arrival of Britney Spears’ first son, Sean Preston Federline, all in 2005.

“You’ve seen a lot of big babies in the last couple of years,” says Sansing.

But experts and observers also point to broader issues: cultural, economic and psychological.

Hard times

“Looking through the morning paper, you want to push past bad news about the economy, and the gas prices, and the war, and all these things and — aah! — you can read about the celebrities,” says Joanne Koch, co-author of “Good Parenting for Hard Times” and a professor of English at National-Louis University in Chicago. “And what is more hopeful and promising than a baby? I think it’s part of that hard-times mentality of escaping that drove people in the really hard times to the movies in the first place.”

During the Great Depression, Americans flocked to glamorous, optimistic movies that offered a reprieve from hardship, Koch says. In light of the current interest in babies, it may be worth noting that while Joan Crawford and Clark Gable were big stars at the time, so was little Shirley Temple.

“Shirley Temple was a child [and] in the ’30s, especially in the height of the Depression, she was huge. And the fact that she was a child added to that whole [idea that], she’s so cute, and she’s so young, and that’s so hopeful that a happy child is going to lead us out of these hard times,” Koch says.

Also big during the Depression were the Dionne quintuplets, the five identical daughters of an impoverished Canadian couple. Born May 28, 1934, the girls were taken from their parents as babies by the Ontario government and exhibited at a hospital known as Quintland.

About 5 million people came to see the first quints known to survive infancy before they were returned to their parents at age 9.

The rise of the modern celebrity baby story can be seen in archives of People magazine, which once granted cover-story status only to the offspring of royalty and A-list stars.

The magazine’s first baby cover, complete with a photo of the happy parents and big sister — went to Cher and Gregg Allman in September 1976, although Goldie Hawn has some claim to the title, as a story focusing in part on her pregnancy with her son Oliver Hudson ran in May of that year.

Cover stories

In the 1980s, Princess Diana, Princess Caroline and Sarah Ferguson scored baby covers, as did Lisa Marie Presley, Cybill Shepherd and Chevy Chase, but the total number of baby covers per year mostly hovered between zero and three.

By 2005, Britney Spears alone was scoring three baby covers in one year — “All about my baby,” “My Baby Shower!” and “Baby Love!”

In 2006, People had a total of six celebrity baby covers, not counting a People Extra titled Babies of the Year. In 2007 there were seven covers, and in the first six months of this year, there have been five, including Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, “Full House’s” Sweetin, Christina Aguilera and Nicole Richie.

“Having a baby can elevate someone’s level of stardom,” says Sansing of Us Weekly.

“For someone like Nicole Richie, she had gone through all these weight struggles — everyone thought she was too thin — and then she’s having a baby. And therefore her life becomes more interesting.”

Aguilera reportedly got as much as $2 million for her People photo exclusive, Richie $1 million. Katie Caperton, a deputy editor at OK! magazine, recently told the New York Daily News that “we … do tremendously well on the newsstand” with celebrity baby covers.

At Celebrity Baby Scoop, a blog that gets over a million page views a month, owner Lisa Weber says babies may be benefiting from trickle-down fame.

“I think [the interest] stems from the celebrity moms,” she says. “We’re just fascinated with them, and it definitely is relatable; a lot of my readers are moms. They’re pregnant, and they like seeing these celebrities are just like them in lots of ways.”

Chicago marriage and family therapist Pamela Brand agrees that the moms and our desire to know more about them are central to the celebrity-baby story.

Learning about moms

“It takes these young, beautiful, almost perfect-appearing women, and brings them to a different level. They open up their lives. And they’re not all that open, and you can’t really understand all that much about them when you see them in pictures. They’re hard to read. You just see them as these beautiful beings.

“When they have children and are willing to show their children and their families, you can read a little bit more into what’s going on.”

Part of the story is how the parents are parenting, from Britney Spears’ car-seat lapse, in which she was photographed driving with her infant son Sean Preston in her lap (she said she was fleeing aggressive paparazzi), to Jennifer Garner’s trips to the playground.

“You can start to tell a little bit about the character of the celebrity by watching them, and I think that is fascinating to people. They want to try to understand who’s who and how do they function and how do they compare with me, and how is their relationship affected?” says Brand.

“Marriages can be very challenged by the birth of a child, or a second child, so I think that people take fascination in knowing, oh, it’s not just me. They’re having trouble, too.”

Beyond the Jolie-Pitt and Holmes-Cruise progeny, the list of top babies includes Garner and Ben Affleck’s daughter, Violet Affleck, and Kingston Rossdale, son of musicians Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale.

“You either know [Stefani's] music or you don’t, but I think everybody knows her, just her look. She has created her own niche, and her son Kingston is a little star himself. The way he dresses, it’s just amazing,” Weber says.

Also sought-after by the paparazzi are Gwyneth Paltrow’s kids, Apple and Moses Martin, and Courteney Cox Arquette’s daughter, Coco.

Even aging celebrity babies are feeling the heat. Sarah Jessica Parker recently told New York magazine that photographers have been more aggressively pursuing the children of stars “over the last four years [and] even more so [in] the last 24 months.”

Her son, James Broderick, is still a target at the ripe old age of 5.

omg, i hope it’s true, i hope the entire family is doing well, god bless them,

@some chick/r*tzygal

Wow, you sure got many ENEMIES !!!

Critics aren’t the only ones fawning over the new Batman movie!

Director Kevin Smith just saw the film and he raved about it on his blog.

He says:

“Courtesy of Peter Sciretta over at SlashFilm.com, I caught an early screening of “The Dark Knight” yesterday evening.Without giving anything away, this is an epic film (and trust me: based on the sheer size and scope of the visuals and storytelling, that’s not an overstatement). It’s the “Godfather II” of comic book films and three times more earnest than “Batman Begins” (and ****, was that an earnest film). Easily the most adult comic book film ever made. Heath Ledger didn’t so much give a performance as he disappeared completely into the role; I know I’m not the first to suggest this, but he’ll likely get at least an Oscar nod (if not the win) for Best Supporting Actor. ******* flick’s nearly three hours long and only leaves you wanting more (in a great way). I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed by it. Nolan and crew have created something close to a masterpiece.”

“Wanted” What / Who?

# 114 Some Chick @ 07/01/2008 at 11:32 am

Face it, b#tch…I was right…AGAIN…and you were wrong…AGAIN. I know it must suck to be so damned stupid, but it’s your lot in life, so just deal with it graciously and bow down and kiss the feet of those of us who are your superiors, intellectually and evolutionarily. Now get back under your rock. The grubs are getting lonely.

Dangg I was betting on a late july date. Wouldnt this make the twins a month and a bit premature? Ahh what do I know. I hope one of them is male, he’d grow up to be one hot piece.

Ok.. what’s taking so long to confirm or deny? Can’t some body make a phone call?

140 - thirst-bucket.

loser, cant even wait. pulling hair out, face soaking wet, going crazy. all for a family you don’t know. LOL that’s a whole new level of stan-ism..

infamous.. shut up you psycho.

# 122 African Girl @ 07/01/2008 at 11:46 am

Hey…what can I say, AG…I’m just gifted at acquiring stalkers. Except…this on is just another of Shitzy’s aliases, so I’m not counting her as a “new” stalker.

BTW - Since we haven’t heard from her in a while I can only assume that your good buddy The Tomato finally got incarcerated in a facility that doesn’t allow it’s inmates internet access. I mean, come on…it can’t be that she simply grew up and realized how juvenile she was being? Nahhhh…that can’t be it…

Ok so i don’t feel like going through 5 pages of this ****.. just tell me is this true or not?

If it’s true it’s about damn time…. if not? booooooo!

btw how much did the leather jacket end up going for? Last i checked it was @ $10,000.