Brad Pitt Makes Family & Philanthropy the Cornerstone of His Brangelina Alliance

Brad Pitt says he would never be elected mayor of New Orleans

The essence of this early August interview with Brad Pitt by London Times writer Martyn Palmer zeroes in on the rowdy Oklahoma kid makes good side of Pitt.

We saw this down-home bad boy side of Pitt this week, responding to questions about marrying partner Angelina Jolie and becoming mayor of New Orleans, in Ann Curry’s TV interview with Pitt, and in the ‘Inglorious Basterd’s’ Parade Magazine reflections on his family life and personal values.

“I’m running on the gay marriage, no religion, legalization and taxation of marijuana platform,” Pitt jokingly told Curry. “I don’t have a chance.” (via NY Daily News)

Clearly Brad Pitt has come a long way from his Missouri, Southern Baptist family days where mother Jane was a high-school counsellor and his father William ran a truck company.

Yet, Pitt seems intent on being a regular guy, evolving out of his single-guy, bad boy days into an exemplary father who says he stopped smoking dope for his kids. Brad continues to enjoy ‘the bottle’, a source of endless Internet speculation on his forever-crashing relationship with Angelina Jolie.

Brad Pitt being the perfect ‘big daddy’ via LA Times ‘The Dish Rag’This summer’s spate of new interviews should put to rest the idea that a Branjelina household meltdown is coming any moment. The headlines sell magazines and Intenet clicks, feeding a mob frenzy around the couple. It’s impossible to know how much is grounded in any truth.

Martyn Palmer writes that Pitt is ‘guarded’ in his comments, which isn’t difficult to understand in a media appetite that’s waiting to pounce, repackaging harmony into dissonance with the click of a button.

There’s no doubt that Angelina Jolie’s credentials are sterling in the world of philanthropy.

Brad Pitt’s voice has been slower to evolve. Now Pitt owns his own voice in Katrina’s devastated lower nineth ward in New Orleans. Most journalists committed to writing responsibly about Brad Pitt portray him as a guy  not as savvy in this new world of global philanthropy and activism.

And yet, when Brad says that he and Jolie could marry, once gay marriage is the law of the land in America, we sense this is the real Brad talking. His deep convictions about helping others seem much more aligned with Angelina Jolie’s than Jennifer Aniston’s.

Brad Pitt the father hasn’t hesitated for one moment to embrace a big love of family this week. Here, too, he seems more akin to Jolie, a Smart Sensuality woman who hasn’t appeared as Aniston-needy for Brad’s protective big shoulders. Jolie’s lack of a Cinderella complex both attracts and repells women worldwide.

In the world of philanthropy, Brad is best known for his Make It Right foundation.

When snaps of Knox and Vivienne were sold for a staggering $14 million in 2008, it was followed by a philanthropic spree. Via their Jolie-Pitt Foundation they gave $1 million to displaced people in Pakistan, and another $1 million to set up the Jane Pitt Pediatric Centre, named after his mother, in his home town. They have poured cash into aid programmes for Chad and Darfur, supported Doctors Without Borders, and many more. Indeed, according to their tax records, they donated $8 million to charity in 2006 alone – long before the baby photographs deal. via London Times

Angellina Jolie and Brad Pitt celebrate Pitt’s new film “Inglorious Basterds’, via LA Dish RagBoth Pitt and Jolie are Smart Sensuality, Cultural Creatives to the core. It seems that Jolie has taught Pitt a thing or two about leveraging fame and money to do real good in the world.

Compared to a Gates or Buffett, the Jolie-Pitt alliance may be comparatively small potatoes. But as the world’s most glamorous nomads, they are creating a new paradigm of how to balance romance, family and philanthropy in a world that needs actionable advice on every front. Anne