I am confused as to why everyone is so quick to pile on Tom Cruise. I say this as someone who vehemently hated Tom Cruise when Top Gun came out. I was in the fifth grade and in the middle to upper middle class. I was the "cool" kid in the honors class, which is akin to being the best dancer in the chess club (I know from personal experience). At any rate, Tom Cruise's coolness in Top Gun reminded me that my coolness was only a mirage, a coolness that disappeared when I left the confines of "my people." Tom Cruise's coolness, as defined by that brown leather jacket that everyone just had to have, defied boundaries and classrooms. He oozed coolness. He was coolness personified. And I hated him with everything in my little 11 year old body.
As time went on, I refused to participate in any Tom Cruise watching along with my friends. This cultural embargo was helped along by the fact that my parents did not let me watch R-Rated movies and the town I lived in (Wynne, Ar..."The City With A Smile") had a movie theatre that showed only two movies and showed them only once a day. So I managed to avoid Tom Cruise until my Aunt rented "Rain Man." I remember hearing some of the songs and desperately wanting to tell myself that they weren't that cool, but not being able to avoid the obvious truth: everything Tom Cruise touched was cool.
So I broke down and watched Rain Man. And confirming my worst fears and deepest insecurities, Tom Cruise was brilliant. Superb performance. Genius Actor. Words could not describe the effortless brilliance that was Tom Cruise. He was so obviously more cool than I would ever be, yet at the same time seemed to be a person who would hang out with me. I internalized my vast admiration for Cruise, but continued with my boycott.
High School arrived and I still remember seeing the poster of Tom Cruise. There, on the drama door, right beside the sign-up sheet for the trip to "CATS" and the audition call backs for "Sound of Music" was Tom Cruise's face. The poster said something like, "High School Drama is cool for everyone. Just ask Tom Cruise. After injuring himself wrestling, Cruise turned to acting." Suddenly my admiration for Cruise intensified. We were no longer enemies, but colleagues. I was no longer the alienated geek, and he was no longer the symbol for the upper class oppression of the masses. He and I were both "drama guys." I vowed to give him a break.
The next chance I had to see a Tom Cruise movie, I jumped. "A Few Good Men" was a movie that seemed to embody everything I could ever want from Hollywood entertainment. I was now a full fledged Tom Cruise fan. "The Firm," "Mission Impossible," "Interview With A Vampire," and "Jerry Maguire." Hit after hit after hit, with Cruise playing different but complete characters each time. I'm in. You win. I believe. Tom Cruise is awesome. The battle is won and Tom Cruise is victorious.
Fast Forward to 2005. Now suddenly Tom Cruise isn't cool? Are you kidding me? Why? Because of Katie Holmes? She is gorgeous. Why shouldn't he be in love with her? It seems to me he is just being genuine with his emotions. Why crucify him?
Is it because he disagrees with Matt Lauer? What makes Matt so much more intelligent? Maybe I'm missing the boat, but I just don't see it.
This is the point: We lack loyalty in America today. In our post "Leave it to Beaver", hyper-ironic society, it is not lost on me that our glowing symbol of disloyalty is a man who has been married three times. However, I think that it is precisely this reason that helps explain the Cruise phenomenon, or at least my distaste with the current school of thought. People have not decided that Tom Cruise is uncool because he is on his third wife. That is fine. Hollywood regularly celebrates people who have married multiple times. There was no outcry when Tom dumped Mimi for Nicole. So why now? (I will have to go more in-depth on this in a post on why women instinctively support Jennifer Aniston.)
People have not decided Tom Cruise is uncool because of his "wacky beliefs." Although this seems to be the most common argument of people right now, it lacks validity. IF, and I emphasize the word if, Tom Cruise has wacky beliefs, he didn't just get them this year. He has had them. And they aren't that much different from John Travolta, but John is not treated the same way Tom is at present. So this argument that Tom has crazy beliefs, is to me, not valid at all. Tom's belief system has not radically changed over the last ten years, so why now all of a sudden is he crazy? This argument is a cop out to cover up the real reason we are now dog piling Tom Cruise.
The real reason is: Tom Cruise has dared to insinuate that he might be right. We live in a super sensitive politically correct world in a time where existence must be defined paradoxically. First and foremost, the individual is supreme, and individuality is cherished. In this context, Tom Cruise is to be respected. He is completely his own person. Crafting his own ideals and religious beliefs and holding firm to his principals when confronted and questioned. However the second side of society and the dual part of the paradox, where Cruise ultimately "failed," is this: While individuality is the height of virtues, once that individuality transgresses past the individual it becomes something to be distrusted and ridiculed. Tom Cruise was perfectly fine when he was a Scientologist and silent. Even when he was a Scientologist going through a divorce. However, when he became a Scientologist who believed he was correct, that automatically means he believes others are wrong. Which means he is trying to set standards for people. Which violates keeping individuality individual.
So what does this have to do with American Loyalty? Well, it goes to show that we as a whole never fully supported Tom Cruise. It shows that we are really as fickle as everyone would suggest. It shows that we only support people as long as they are doing what we want them to and when our own selfish needs are no longer addressed, we turn to someone else who will give us what we want. America wanted to make Tom Cruise cool, and now that we have decided he isn't anymore, we are trying to ruin him. Well, it took me years to agree that Tom is cool and so I'm not going to swing my opinion on the guy so easily. Tom Cruise is still a brilliant actor, and a cool guy, regardless of his personal life or beliefs. And if he wants to have a baby with Katie Holmes, watch it develop on a sonogram machine the entire nine months and broadcast that image live over the internet and into outer space to whatever forms of life might happen to be watching, I'm with Maverick. I guess it just goes to show that when it comes right down to it, even though America thinks it is entitled to it, we simply "can't handle the truth!"
