How come Angelina Jolie got a place in France? Doesn't she usually go to New Orleans or Third World countries?
—Alek, Brussels
The B!tch Replies: The British Sun has reported that La Jolie would like to raise her new child in France to honor her late French-Canadian mother. What the Sun maybe forgot to report is that France is not in Canada. That fact has led your Answer B!tch toward a different theory, one that involves flattening the paparazzi.
Listen.
The last time Jolie gave birth, she flew to a country so restrictive that no paparazzo was allowed to leave Namibia without a jackboot firmly installed in his bunghole. Anyone who dared to snap the pregnant actress risked deportation or jail.
Now, it seems, Jolie is pregnant again. And it so happens that the privacy laws in France are almost as tight as Namibia's.
French law is kind of murky when it comes to celebrity photography, but in general, it goes like this: No snapping a star, even in public, and then selling it in France without the celeb's say-so. And photos of celebrity kids? Forget it. Their faces are tiled out completely in magazines, unless the parent says otherwise.
That isn't to say that France isn't rife with paparazzi. It has them. In fact, French paparazzi are respected in the industry as being some of the best in the business. But the laws there being what they are, many photographers there are cautious.
And paparazzi in France have been punished for breaking the privacy laws. In 2006, three snappers were convicted of breaching those very laws when they took pictures of Princess Diana and her boyfriend on the night they died. They got a symbolic fine of 1 euro, but still. They got nailed.
"I would have second thoughts on taking any pictures there until the law is defined," says Brad Elterman of BuzzFoto.com. "I would think twice."
He continues: "You will never have a situation in France like you have had with, say, Britney Spears. A few paparazzi? Maybe. But a train of 30 cars following someone? The French are never going to tolerate that. They would find it incredibly vulgar."
As vulgar as a Namibian jackboot up one's bunghole? Mais, bien sûr!
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