"If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I'm not frightened by anyone's perception of me"
About this Quote
The subtext is a critique of spectatorship. “Anyone’s perception of me” is doing heavy lifting: it points to the constant surveillance that turns women in public life into a group project, where strangers feel entitled to grade your body, your mothering, your politics, your trauma. Jolie flips the power dynamic. Perception becomes their problem, not her cage.
Context matters because Jolie has spent decades being narrated at: tabloid villain, sex symbol, humanitarian saint, unstable rebel, perfect mother, calculated activist. The public story was always louder than the private person. This quote reads as a boundary line drawn in permanent marker, a way of reclaiming authorship when your image is treated like common property.
It also has an actor’s pragmatism: performance requires risk, and fear of looking foolish kills experimentation. Jolie’s ethos here isn’t “I don’t care”; it’s “I won’t be governed.” In a culture that polices women through embarrassment, refusing to be frightened is its own kind of counter-programming.
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jolie, Angelina. (2026, January 17). If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I'm not frightened by anyone's perception of me. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-make-a-fool-of-myself-who-cares-im-not-28648/
Chicago Style
Jolie, Angelina. "If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I'm not frightened by anyone's perception of me." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-make-a-fool-of-myself-who-cares-im-not-28648/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I'm not frightened by anyone's perception of me." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-make-a-fool-of-myself-who-cares-im-not-28648/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.








