In Hollywood, it’s simple.
Drive drunk and make anti-Semitic remarks and keep your movie’s distribution deal with Disney. Jump on Oprah’s couch and lose your 14-year movie contract with Paramount Pictures.
The latter, of course, actually happened to beleaguered superstar Tom Cruise Wednesday. Viacom, the parent company of Paramount Pictures, decided not to renew its contract with Cruise/Wagner Productions, halting finances that would have gone into future Cruise movie projects and specials.
Paramount Pictures chair Sumner Redstone blamed Cruise’s “controversial” behavior for his company’s actions. I like to call it the Scientology effect.
Recall that Cruise has done some questionable things in the past year or so. First there was the couch-jumping incident on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show in May 2005, in which Cruise ranted and raved (like a lunatic) about his love for his new girlfriend, the painfully innocent Katie Holmes. He has single-handedly fashioned the 21st century term for going bonkers: “Jumping the Couch.”
Then there was his battle royale with Matt Lauer on the “Today” show over use of anti-depressants. The “religion” of Scientology bans these drugs and apparently says sufferers can get over their afflictions using “vitamins.” Who knows the history of psychiatry better than anyone? Tom Cruise, of course.
Then there were some other freaky incidents having to do with the birth of Cruise and Holmes’ daughter, Suri. He bought a sonogram machine to do at-home ultrasounds, which, according to experts, isn’t exactly the safest procedure for an untrained person to be doing.
Then he told GQ magazine in April 2006 that he would eat the baby’s placenta. He later reneged on that statement, but there was no other reason for him to say that to a member of the media other than that he is nuts.
There’s a whole Web site devoted to this idea — www.tomcruiseisnuts.com. The site offers Cruise’s thoughts on such topics such as “women,” about which he said, “(Women) smell good. They look pretty. I love women. I do.” Nice use of adjectives there, Tom.
Recently there has been evidence to show that Cruise is no longer the sex symbol and box office go-getter he used to be. While his latest film made in the area of $400 million, at least one recent survey showed women are more than a little turned off by Cruise’s erratic behavior.
A poll by USA Today showed that half of respondents had a “negative” view of Cruise, and another by Marketing Evaluations, Inc. showed the “negative perception” of Cruise had risen 100 percent since mid-2005. If you’re a motion picture company looking to sell movie tickets, those numbers mean quite a lot.
And it’s not that his belief in Scientology has necessarily turned people off to him. Scientology is a “religion” created entirely by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. It has targeted celebrities in order to fund its programs, and quite a few well-known personalities belong to it. Consider that John Travolta, Jenna Elfman (of “Dharma and Greg” fame) and even soul singer Isaac Hayes are Hubbardites. Yet that fact doesn’t seem to contribute to public bad tidings toward them. While their religion is kind of crazy, they’re generally not. But Cruise has crossed the line between being a regular Scientologist to being a proselytizing whacko.
And Americans generally don’t like big-time movie stars with opinions, much less a crazy streak. Rosie O’Donnell learned that the hard way when she ambushed actor Tom Selleck about his views on gun control on her former talk show. Her star’s only just returning now with her upcoming hosting gig on “The View.”
So Tom, for the sake of your as-yet-unseen baby daughter, please keep the crazy talk to a minimum. Babies can’t live on auditing and e-meters alone.
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6 comments:
This is very interesting. A blog about local issues (zoning, etc.) would be worth following if it were not for all the mind-decaying prattle about celebrities. As it is, the blog makes an interested reader feel a bit tawdry... I wonder if you're not shooting for two different audiences here?
Thais Perkins
As I've said before, my blog columns are entertainment-related.
I also post questions about local issues from time to time, at the request of the editor, so that readers can use the comment feature to weigh in. (You can find the subjects in the menu at right.)
I'm not sure if the blog is for two separate audiences, but there are two subjects discussed. If you don't like the celebrity stuff, you don't have to read it. A few of our more "serious" columns are posted on the regular HammondStar.com Web site.
You are more than welcome to post a response to those columns here if you wish, and I'll most likely make a new post out of it.
Thais ----->"I wonder if you're not shooting for two different audiences here?"
And the problem with that would be........?
Sheesh.
No real criticism meant, if this is meant to be an entertainment blog. I was simply excited by the idea of a real online community forum in the South. It's rare and fills an important civic need.
If, instead, the idea is to draw people interested in civic involvement into discussions by interesting them in entertainment, I'd have to make the argument that this may not be the best way to go about it.
At best, it's just too much to dig through the long celebrity posts to get to the dribbles of community news. I know it has kept me from really checking on it much.
At less-than-best, it's an offensive idea that the only thing Hammondites would be interested in is Tom Cruise and that to get them involved you must put entertainment-- not even local entertainment, but national-- in blinking lights. It underestimates the audience.
Again, if your real motive is entertainment, then the blog seems thorough and well-written.
Do you only include community topics to satisfy your editor?
My columns are generally about entertainment, news coverage, music, TV, the Internet, etc. Sometimes I do write about national topics, but I also try localize them too, such as the Marguerite Perrin / YouTube column. I am beginning to do a lot of entertainment reporting locally, but it is usually for special sections.
Maybe you are confused because you don't see the paper on a regular basis? The blog is nothing more than an extension of our printed edition, really. My column is directly related to the blog because I post it here every week and get comments on it. But if there's another story that comes out about an issue that we want input on, we direct readers here too. It's not that I'm just using entertainment to draw people here - I'm using whatever story was in the paper that includes the link. We're simply trying to get readers to read something and react.
And frankly, take a look back at some of my posts. When I asked whether Britney Spears should move back to Kentwood, I got over 20 responses almost right away. Ditto on the "what store should come to the Hammond Mall?" (That one is actually over 100 responses.) When I asked about the mayoral debate or things like lot sizes, I got less than five.
And yes I do post these at the request of my editor, or at the request of the reporter or even at the request of a poster like yourself. I'm not on a civic beat so I defer to their judgment.
ok, so I confess to a weakness for maurgeurite perrin trivia and bobbleheads as well. fair enough. and britney certainly is local, even if tom cruise isn't. MawMaw may be turned off, but it's tough to be attractive to all demographics-- one of the reasons democracy is a little broken these days.
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