Apr 10, 2006 08:32 PM
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Hollywood, 6:36 PM
Tue Mar 16
55 posts in the last 24 hours
This week's New York magazine wades knee-deep into the Messiah-level anticipation accompanying the impending birth of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's forthcoming biological offspring, the perfect being expected to emerge from Jolie's womb, cut its own umbilical cord, and toddle off into the world to take care of the business of saving mankind. No one stands to profit more from the infant's arrival than the lucky paparazzo who first captures an image of the graced rugrat (assuming, of course, that the new parents don't sell the photo themselves and donate the money to their favorite charity), and one of the photographers plays out the "bleak scenario" that could unfold in the event of a Paris-based (where the couple now has an apartment) birth:
As he sees it, he will arrive there a few days before Jolie's due date and join the stakeout at the couple's apartment. Then one day he and the rest of the paparazzi pack will follow Jolie and Pitt—who, if habit serves, will travel in an easy-to-spot American-made minivan—to the American Hospital and set up an encampment across the street. "It's going to be a circus," the paparazzo predicts. He will do his best to establish his spot, one that gives him a view of as many hospital exits as possible, and then he will wait. While waiting, he may try to make contacts with people inside the hospital and ply them with money to give him even the smallest shards of information—such as which floor Jolie is staying on or which exit the new parents and baby might emerge from when they go home—but he admits the chances of his getting any are slim. "If anyone is going to get inside information," he complains, "it'll be the French photographers."
And then, after a few days, Jolie will leave the hospital with her new baby. Chances are she and Pitt will create a diversion—an empty carriage, a decoy car, something. But even if they don't, there's no guarantee a paparazzo will get a good shot of the baby. "It's going to be very hard, because if you think about it, a newborn is in that 'carry' thing, whatever the hell you call it, and you literally need to get up right next to it in order to get a clean shot of the face," the paparazzo says. When Jolie returns to her apartment, she will be even harder to photograph, since her place is next door to a French-government building, and she typically gets in and out of her car in the government's secure parking lot. Once Jolie goes inside with her new baby, the photographers will wait again. And wait. And wait some more. Maybe someone will try to bribe a delivery boy for inside information, but there's no point in trying to bribe the other people who live in Jolie's building, since, the paparazzo explains, "neighbors won't give up a neighbor."
While the above scenario assumes a Parisian Second Coming, recent chatter points to the possibility of a Namibian delivery, where gathering journalists face defenses more formidable even than unhelpful Frenchmen: man-eating lions. But even this wrinkle opens the possibility of an even better cover tabelau involving Jolie stepping outside with her newborn to dispassionately observe an unlucky shutterbug being devoured by her feral protectors, teaching her child its first lesson about dealing with the press.
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