Deconstructing Brad Pitt

The reactions evoked by images of and stories about Brad Pitt are many and wide-ranging: while one person might swoon or exclaim, another rolls his eyes or groans. How a single figure provokes such strong, often opposing emotions is a puzzle, one elegantly explored and perhaps even solved by Deconstructing Brad Pitt. Co-editors Christopher Schaberg and Robert Bennett have shaped a book that is not simply a multifaceted analysis of Brad Pitt as an actor and as a celebrity, but which is also a personal inquiry into how we are drawn to, turned on, or otherwise piqued by Pitt's performances and personae. Written in accessible prose and culled from the expertise of scholars across different fields, Deconstructing Brad Pitt lingers on this iconic actor and elucidates his powerful influence on contemporary culture. The editors will be donating a portion of their royalties to Pitt's Make It Right foundation.

This book is part of Hyperink's best little books series. This best little book is 4,000+ words of fast, entertaining information on a highly demanded topic. Based on reader feedback (including yours!), we may expand this book in the future. If we do so, we'll send a free copy to all previous buyers. ABOUT THE BOOK Brad Pitt is one of the most famous actors of his generation, thanks to a magical combination of commercial success, critical respect, universally acknowledged good looks, and endless tabloid coverage of his romantic relationships with fellow A-listers. Pitt is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner who has also become increasingly involved with humanitarian causes. Pitt started his career in television, appearing in Another World, and in four episodes of the hit show Dallas in 1987-88. In the later, he played the character “Randy,” whom Pitt described as a “typical high schooler” (Teen Beat, Teen Beat Makes a Pitt Stop to Meet Dallas Star Brad Pitt). By the end of the 1980s, he’d added numerous other TV credits, including 21 Jump Street, Growing Pains, Head of the Class, and thirtysomething. Pitt played a lead role in the 1990 TV movie Too Young to Die, starring alongside Juliette Lewis, paving the way for an off-camera romance. “For half of our relationship, we were just unknown young actors in L.A.,” Lewis said recently. “I even remember his little bungalow that we lived in off Melrose that we’d smoke lots of pot in” (BlackBook, Juliette Lewis is a Natural Born Rebel). MEET THE AUTHOR Adam McKibbin's work has appeared in a wide variety of magazines and websites, including The Nation, the Chicago Tribune, AlterNet, Paste and Punk Planet. He's worked in web editorial and social media management for years, and is a seasoned interviewer whose favorite subjects include David Lynch, Tori Amos and human rights journalist Mac McClelland. He studied creative writing at the University of Wisconsin and received the Award for Academic Excellence for his collected fiction. He's currently working on his first nonfiction book. Adam lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter, and can be found on Twitter at @TheRedAlert. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Pitt is also 0-for-4 at the BAFTA Awards, again receiving three nominations as an actor and one as a producer (for The Departed). He’s a five-time nominee at the Golden Globes; his lone win, in 1995, was for his supporting work in 12 Monkeys. One award Pitt wouldn’t have minded skipping: the Razzies (or Golden Raspberry Awards) in 1995, where he and Tom Cruise were “honored” as the Worst Screen Couple for Interview with the Vampire, sharing the award with Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone. Similarly, one of the awards that brought him the most notoriety is one over which Pitt has expressed ambivalence or conflicted feelings: People’s Sexiest Man Alive, a title he’s won twice. “I think that was a cruel, cruel thing to do to me,” he said following the first award. “...It’s some cruel and heinous joke. A friend of mine said they misspelled it-it was supposed to be sexiest moron” (Los Angeles Times, Don’t Call Him Sexy)... Buy a copy to keep reading!

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