The Reluctant Whore

This latest Tom Cruise PR push is really fascinating me. I actually sat through the entire second half of the interview with him on Oprah yesterday and am amazed I’m not in a coma. Just like part one, it teaches us nothing about him except for who his closest sycophant allies are and it confirms that he’s trying to get back up on the movie star horse.

So, part two of his campaign to re-brand himself as a sane man with a family who is a movie star rather than a complete nutcase cult member with a contracted beard is the launch of his site – http://www.tomcruise.com/

One small but fascinating thing about the site and also the interview yesterday is that neither one really features that much footage of him in Interview with a Vampire. For an hour of television completely focused on Cruise’s body of work, Oprah’s interview didn’t mention it once. I’m not sure if that’s because it was widely received as a gay film or if it’s because the reception it received from Oprah and her audience when it came out was cold. Mind you, Oprah and Tom Cruise share the same fan base demographic so that is probably why it’s been put together this way. Either way, it’s interesting that it was never mentioned at all on Oprah and is featured for about 15 seconds in the entire 6 minute montage of his work.

Ultimately though, when you think about it, the entire premise they’ve chosen to hang this career rehabilitation on is essentially preposterous. Tom Cruise was in The Outsiders, Losin’ It, Taps and Endless Love before he was in Risky Business and yet somehow we’re all being bludgeoned with the news that Risky Business is this iconically important film that deserves an international, multi media retrospective of his career simply because it came out 25 years ago.

What interests me far more than any of this, and I have to admit, I really do think he’s done some great work over the years; Interview with a Vampire remains one of my favourite films, is – for a man who is so insanely controlling and essentially delusional, what was the point where he really knew he needed to stop acting like douche bag in public and rein in the Scientolobabble crap. The stupidest thing he ever did was fire Pat Kingsley and now he’s finally coming back to where he was in the beginning. I am just interested in what specific thing happened to make him realize he had to pull his mind and image back together. Well, image anyway. The mind seems completely gone. [source]