Alanis Morissette: The Awesomer Jennifer Aniston of Canada?
No, really. Obviously some flaws with this comparison: Alanis Morissette is a freaking genius for the ages, and so greatly loved by myself and her other countrymen and women that she seems destined eventually to be named Governor-General of Canada. Jennifer Aniston, blah blah seems nice? Likes upscale Mexican food? Has cool granite notes in that house she’s either selling or not selling? Speaks well of her dogs in interviews?
But, for Canadians, the degree of frenetic, overweening interest in whether Alanis will ever find a good man after having been publicly done wrong…so many times…has to strike a chord in her American sister. (She has a dude and a baby now, so we’re holding our breath for her, obviously, but how many of us thought Vince Vaughn might put his seed in Jennifer?)
And Alanis, love her, much like Jennifer (using the alternative media of People Magazine interviews), has given us so many YOGA SOLITUDE SELF-LOVE FRIENDSHIP FORGIVENESS songs over time, occasionally coupled with THIS GUY IS NOT AN ASSHOLE AND WE WILL PROBABLY GO TO INDIA TOGETHER songs gloriously followed by OKAY, HE WAS AN ASSHOLE BUT NOW I KNOW MORE ABOUT MYSELF AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE IS THE FRUIT OF TRUTH songs that you almost feel justified in gossiping about her sitch, but not really.
The low point of Alanis’ self-respect in the unblinking public eye (not Dave Coulier, even, because Alanis got that BOSS SONG out of it) has to be breaking up with Ryan Reynolds, who we had high hopes for, him being a local boy, which would have been omg so beautiful, and who then committed the unpardonable, sick, twisted sin of getting together with a total American skank-temptress which didn’t work out anyway.
Torn on whether Jennifer’s parallel here was the Brad-and-Angie moment (her Dave Coulier? minus the boss song?) or John Mayer (no, screw it, there’s no way that John Mayer isn’t Dave Coulier, minus the boss song).
And, to be fair, the Canadian media is not an Alanis Factory in quite the same way that Jennifer’s sadface has launched a thousand tabloid ships in the States, but it’s perhaps a more genuine obsession in the private lives of Canadians than Jennifer’s is for Americans. Who doesn’t deserve happiness more than Alanis Morissette, you know? New guy, you’re on notice. (Justin Theroux, I have nothing interesting to say to or about you.)