Why are Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston treated so differently?

[Blue_Tires]

who oh WHY do i EVER read anything other than the guardian...everytime i click in its a goldmine...


Here's a story about a famous actress, nearer to 40 than Hollywood tends to like its actresses to be, and unmarried. She is also "linked" to lots of famous men, going through them at the rate some of us go through gossip magazines. Poor Jen, right? Nope – "lucky Cameron".

Last week a tabloid claimed Cameron Diaz is seeing Keanu Reeves after having last month "dated" Jason Lewis, the actor who played Smith on Sex and the City, and going on "a string of dates" with Jude Law and Leonardo DiCaprio before that.

Whether any of that is true is irrelevant. Diaz gets portrayed as an enviable lady with a phenomenal sex life. Yet Jennifer Aniston, who is of a similar age (40 to Diaz's 36) and has even dated many of the same men, prompts international media condescension. Why the unfair discrepancy?

Partly this is a question of unfortunate circumstance. No matter how many teeth-whitened smiles Aniston makes to the camera, she will always be the woman who was left by Brad Pitt for the sexiest woman on the planet. The tabloid world has set this image in lucrative stone.

Diaz may or may not have been left by her ex Justin Timberlake (depending on which magazine you read) but this never defined her, partly because neither party ever referred to it again.

Both women are beautiful but Aniston clearly works, like most would have to, quite hard at this, as a comparison between early Friends episodes and recent GQ shoots proves. Diaz always came across as a naturally gorgeous tomboy who just surfs to work off her chips. This adds to the impression that Diaz would be a lot of fun to hang out with, particularly as she was a slapstick girl from the start, gaily making fun of herself in The Mask and smoothing spunk in her hair in There's Something About Mary.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/24/cameron-diaz-jennifer-aniston

[VMI Dem]

1. Brad was smart to leave Aniston. Angelina is MUCH hotter.

Come to think of it, Cameron Diaz is much hotter too.

[gmoney]

2. Diaz is a "bad girl" and Aniston is a "good girl"

Aniston made a huge splash and built her fame on "Friends" as the ultimate "girl next door" type for the 90s, and in general, her movie roles are along those lines. So, I think people expect her romantic life to be a storybook of "happily ever after". Also, I think most people still think of her as a TV star, even though Friends has been off the air for 5 years now -- maybe because she's not had a hugely successful movie role (at least not one that wasn't a slight variation on Rachel Green). Also, the role of Rachel on Friends, with her visiting the homes of faithful viewers every week (or every day in reruns) creates an illusion that she is almost like a personal friend, at least to the point that one feels like they "know" her after so many years), thus creating greater personal concern for her welfare.

Diaz started out as a model (there are even nude photos of her out there... shocking!) and worked her way up through the movies in a wider variety of roles -- Something about Mary, Charlie's Angels, the Mask, and a WHOLE bunch of very forgettable movies, but nothing especially "goody goody." Apart from her voice work in Shrek, she's really not had a hit in almost 10 years. Yeah, her goofy, casual persona doesn't especially make you think that she's concerned about finding the "love of her life" as much as someone she can enjoy hanging around with, so the fact that she's not "settled down" isn't going to bother anyone.

[Blue_Tires]

3. very true...

[arcadian]

4. "who just surfs to work off her chips."

I love that expression, I have no idea what it means.

[Moondog]

9. "Chips" is English vernacular for what we call french fries.

In other words, she burns off her high-calorie junk food on a surfboard.

[arcadian]

10. Yeah, I knew what chips were,

It just didn't make sense, I thought was some British phrase for "she doesn't work hard to do what she does" which I guess it does kind of.

[eyepaddle]

5. I think it's the way Aniston talks about Pitt in almost any interview she does.

Granted, a lot of the time it is in response to a question, it's starting to look like the questions get asked because everybody knows she wants to talk about it. For quite a while she was the sympathetic jilted lover. Several years on, she is starting to look like a psycho ex-girlfriend.

[cemaphonic]

6. There also seems to be a higher status and glamour attached to movie stars vs TV stars.

Part of the reason many successful tv actors never really transition to a big movie career.

[Wapsie B]

7. Cameron....................... sigh...............

[Flaxbee]

8. Rachel, whether true or not, has come off sounding

really needy sometimes. Clingy, wanting to be with someone special, etc. I think a few of her friends have also said this ("friends" used loosely).

Cameron acts like a maneater. Rachel acts needy and jilted, she's not as good at spin, and is starting to come across as pathetic.