HOLLYWOOD - Even as Tom Cruise conspires to ride the wave of a new child and a new movie, there are signs that Americans are growing weary of the little publicity engine that could, and studio bosses are beginning to worry that Mr. Cruise may take Mission Impossible 3 down with him.
Fact: fewer people watched Mr. Cruise' interview with Diane Sawyer on Primetime Live last Friday than watched Barbara Walters go one-on-one with Macaulay Culkin last month. As Mr. Cruise would say, "can you dig it?" The biggest movie star in the world is cut down to size by a burned-out former child star whose most interesting recent appearance occurred in Michael Jackson's bedroom.
Fact: when Parade magazine asked its readers a few weeks ago whether Mr. Cruise' negative image was his own fault or that of a hostile press, somebody was so eager to hang the blame on the press that he or she or they cast 8,400 pro-Cruise votes from a single computer. If you've reached the point where somebody's trying hijack a survey for you in Parade, the Sears Colonial-style furniture of journalism for Christ's sake, your career's already in the crapper and there's a sinister-looking finger on the handle.
A Parade publicist thought he saw a Scientologist or two in the vote pile.
"It seems these folks (whoever they may be) resorted to extraordinary measures to try to portray Tom in a positive light," said the publicist. "There is even a chance they wrote a special 'bot' program for the sole purpose of skewing the results, rather than casting the votes by hand on a computer. Sounds like a pretty devoted group of people, don't you think?"
Hello. Katie. Katie? Is anybody home?
Initial rumblings of the Tom Cruise backlash appeared on Internet message boards and forums, where there are more anti-Cruise comments than crawling things in Paris Hilton's thong. Terms like "cocky little midget" and "goddamn freak of nature" are regularly applied to Mr. Cruise by people who consider him a lower form of life than Saddam Hussein or even George W. Bush.
Mr. Cruise' tumble from Top Gun to bottom feeder can be attributed to a multiplicity of factors, including but not limited to his height, his insufferable smugness, his goofy grin, his annoying use of the words dig and cool, his constant pimping for a "religion" that's the equivalent of a Ponzi scheme, his embarrassing actions—no forty-something man should play so much tonsil hockey with his younger bitch in public—his utter lack of style (he probably still listens to Air Supply), his desperate attempts to appear hip by wearing jeans most of the time, and the persistent rumors that he's gay. (When Kirstie Alley said "Tom does everything 150 per cent, and fatherhood he does 300 per cent," one wag commented, "The only thing Tom does 300% is Rob Thomas.")
Despite the signs of an epic Cruise backlash in the making, one should not expect Mr. Cruise to go down without a fight. If you don't believe us, ask Katie Holmes. Do not be surprised, therefore, if Mr. Cruise suddenly announces he has a terminal disease. Then after 60 Minutes devotes an entire edition to photos of Mr. Cruise and his daughter, we are told in the end that Mr. Cruise has been cured by his faith in Scientology, just as he was cured of his dyslexia.
Next Oprah: Why There Will Never Be a Backlash against Me.
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