Blog 3: Jennifer Aniston

Gabrielle Bennett

Professor Waggoner

Writing as Inquiry

12 October 2016

Blog 3: Jennifer Aniston

In 2004, Jennifer Aniston appeared on Primetime Thursday. The release of the final season of the hit television series Friends, as well as the release of the movie Along Came Polly prompted this interview. Although at this point in time she may have been at the top of the charts in her career due to her success in the film industry, Aniston’s recent break up with Brad Pitt brought her name to true stardom. This year was truly her year in the tabloids. She was without a doubt a “hot topic”, and was described as the women who every female wanted to be like, and who every male wanted to be his next door neighbor. The target audience and the actual audience most likely overlap due to the popularity of Aniston at this point in time. The target audience would be the fans of Jennifer Aniston. Since Primetime Thursday was a broadcasting program, I would say that the interview was being watched via television. 

Diane Sawyer, an interviewer on Primetime, briefly summarizes how Aniston became such a superstar: at the young age of 24, Aniston had already been faced with three canceled series, and then “struck gold” because of her breakup with Brad Pitt. Sawyer continues to ramble on about how although Aniston has been everywhere from the big screen to the tabloids, we truly do not know who she is. Aniston commented on how high pitched her voice was the opening clips of the interview from Friends, and Sawyers proceeded to ask if Aniston was nervous. Sawyers also brings up how Aniston was obsessed with dieting, and Aniston put down all rumors of her ever practicing any extreme dieting techniques including anorexia and bulimia. She did however mention that at one point she was "an obsessive dietaholic", but now “diets” by going to the gym and watching what she consumes.

 I found this interview to be very similar to the interview we watched in class featuring a mature Angelina Jolie. In both the Aniston and Jolie interviews, each of the interviewers was on each of the interviewee’s side in real time, and seemed to defame each actress in the voice recordings later added to the segments. For example, during this 2009 interview, Sawyer made it look like the questions she was asking were harmless, however they quite the opposite. In the full interview, there were prerecorded clips of Sawyers talking about how insecure Aniston is. In addition to this, Sawyer talks about the lack of confidence that Aniston had in person, but the tremendous amount of confidence she had on the screen. Diane Sawyer shaped my perception of Jennifer Aniston as an insecure, emotional woman with true talent. I believe this is exactly how Aniston wanted to be portrayed to the audience, however some comments made by Sawyer slightly tainted what she truly wanted to be portrayed to her audience. The main purpose of the Diane Sawyer interview was to show to viewer who the real Jennifer Aniston was when stripped from the tabloids.