Has there been a Brad Pitt backlash?

By: Dianna, Panama City, Florida

A.B. Replies: You mean, cash-wise? Lemme check the A-list. Yeah, Brad is still pretty much on there. And since he's gotten with Angelina Jolie, he's managed to not only stay nefariously wealthy but also score a production deal with Paramount. That assures that Pitt won't go poor or even suffer a dip in his third-world-travel budget, anytime soon.

And oh, yes: Warner Bros. likes Brad, too. The company has bought the remake rights to Hong Kong cop thriller Infernal Affairs just for Pitt's production house, Plan B.

"I hear a lot of people are very down on Brad Pitt," says Samantha Ettus, a brand-management expert specializing in famous personalities. "But I don't know that it will translate to [Pitt taking] a huge hit at the box office."

There's more. That husband-and-wife covert spandex movie which starred Pitt and Jolie and a bunch of fanciful-looking killing machines? It brought in $50.3 million in its opening weekend, making Mr. and Mrs. Smith one of the year's biggest openers. That unrepentant movie of sin has grossed more than $300 million worldwide. You find people in Panama City may hate philanderers, but most of you are still willing to pay to watch them fire guns and duck under countertops.

Here in Hollywood, the locals are even more forgiving. Sleeping with someone who looks like Jolie rarely causes you harm once you cross into the L.A. Basin. In fact, it counts for major points. It doesn't matter how you get into that mosquito-netted bed of Jolie's, what's important is that you get there.

Pitt's image may be suffering horribly among fans in the flyover states. But in the meantime, that image can cradle itself on a looming cushion of Hollywood cash, probably in Malibu somewhere, waiting for the moment when America finds another cheating bastard to hate. Until then, it'll be keeping itself entertained with Lomi Lomi massages and laps in the infinity pool.

The worst punishment Pitt is suffering right now? Infinitesimal bits of bile coming from hordes of pea-size homunculi like you and the rest of the microscopic nonfamous population. I'm sure you Lilliputians are determined to abhor Brad--just, ooh, despise him--for the next few months, focusing your beady little eyes into ball bearings of pure rage and doing your mightiest to pierce Pitt's flesh with psychic beams of searing hate. Or, at least, you'll do your best to think ill thoughts about Pitt until something cool comes on TV, like those crazy Two and a Half Men doing something high-larious.

To Pitt, the attack probably feels like a few stray pieces of fluffy dandelion seeds hitting the giant slab of a face that Abraham Lincoln has on Mount Rushmore.

As for Jolie, all that baby-saving and speechifying and looking delicious seems to be deflecting any kind of backlash.

"With Angelina, I don't think this impacts her brand name at all," Ettus tells this B!tch. "It puts her more in the spotlight--her activities in the United Nations and in Africa, and her adopted children.

"At least her activities--her humanitarian activities--are being cast in a positive light. You can't cast them in any other way."

Of course, I can. I mean, if I want to. I. Am. The Answer B!tch.