For this blog I wanted to take a moment and analyze the picture of the Jolie-Pitts I had as my profile picture.

The first thing that sticks out in the picture is that no one person looks like the other. For example, while Brad and Angelina are both white, he has bright blue eyes and blond hair, while Angelina has a darker complexion. The children, Maddox, Zhara, and Shiloh are of different races and colors as well.

Thus, straight from the get go we can see that this is not your "typical" family. It is an assemblage of peoples strategically put together to form a universal family.

The second element of the picture that sticks out is the characters' gaze. Each person in the picture is looking somewhere else. Brad, for example, seems to be looking both at nothing and the entire family at the same time. Angelina's gaze, on the other hand, is clearly directed to Shiloh, while Maddox is looking at Shiloh and perhaps Zahara and Shiloh is looking at Zahara. Zahara on the other hand is staring out into nothing somewhat breaking the inner composition of the children's gazes.

A few things come to mind when examining the character's gazes. First, it seems that while Brad is overlooking everything he is somewhat removed from the family. It is almost as if he is giving his approval to the idea of having a multiracial family, but at the same time that he is not the driving force behind its formation. Angelina, in contrast, seems like the heart and soul of the family. It is her idea and on her the family rests. See the link for a look at the Bunker Family, from the Archie Bunker Show. Archie is the one at the bottom of the picture, he is the foundation, the anchor for the family not as we see in this picture.

Second, the children seem to be connected to one another only through Angelina. There is no interaction between them, and in fact each seems to have some sort of interest in the other that they themselves are unaware of. Zahara is the exception in this case, as it is she seems to not be interested in anything in the family.

Furthermore, although Angelina seems to be glowing, I don't get a sense of happiness rising from the family, and definitely not one of a uniting sense of love. What I see is a happy woman who is pleased with what she has created, a man who supports her, and three kids who have no idea what's going on.