Top 10 reasons Tom Cruise is insane
Oh, to be Thomas Cruise Mapother IV; eyes a-twinkle, razor teeth glistening in the sun. Back from another thankless day of raking record box-office profits and educating the world on the dangers of psychiatry, you tumble into the arms of your freshly manicured hypno-bride and sigh at the embarrassing ignorance of the unwashed masses. Perhaps you’ll pop in a Scientology DVD - that’ll cheer you up. Or better yet a kiss on the nose from your genetically perfect offspring, Suri. It’s all a lot to bear sometimes, being The Tom Cruise, but with great power comes great responsibility.
And with great responsibility comes insanity. I’m not here to point fingers and decide what, exactly, sent Tom off the deep end. Was it his allegiance to a certain oft-ridiculed pseudo-religion that rhymes with ‘Shmientology’? The continued denial of his widely rumoured homosexuality? The end of his marriage to the world’s most botoxed robot? We may never know. What we do know is that he’s the current mayor of Crazy Town, and I’m not referring to the mid-90’s L.A. rapcore band that reached prominence with their delightfully catchy hit, “Butterfly.”
Here’s why Tom Cruise is nuts:
10. The Mapother Name: It’s real. And I know there are celebrities with much worse real names (paging Natalie Hershlag/Portman), but the down-to-earth Mapother name coupled with the painfully manufactured ‘Tom Cruise’ persona strikes me as particularly disingenuous. It’s like marrying a guy who’s had tons of plastic surgery and wondering what your kids are going to look like. Tom has something to hide.
9. Scientology: This one doesn’t need a ton of explanation, but I’ll say this: When Cush from Jerry Maguire is making fun of you, things are getting out of hand.
8. The Trickle Down Effect: Aside from his stirring portrayal of Cole Trickle, Tom also received a story credit for Days of Thunder. Now, he was big in 1990, but there’s no way he had the juice to be handed a credit for nothing, which means he actually came up with the story for Days of Thunder. Take a second to let that sink in. Even stranger is that it’s the only writing credit on his entire resume. That’s the one gift of storytelling he chose to share with the world? What else is kicking around in that treasure trove of a brain of his? Perhaps we’ll never know.
7. Show Me The Oscar: While it’s not uncommon in Hollywood to take roles specifically because they’ll get Oscar buzz (cough, cough, Jim Carrey), Tom Cruise is on a 15-year run of Academy brown-nosing that’s unparalleled. While he’s come close with Jerry Maguire and Magnolia, the lowlights get a little embarrassing. Seen The Last Samurai? How about Lions for Lambs? Here’s a tip: Don’t. They suck.
6. Frank T.J. Mackey: Tom Cruise has been acting so hard for so long (see above), that at some point he snapped and the real Tom went away, leaving only Tom Cruise The Actor. It’s like Being John Malkovich, only backwards and much less enjoyable. The real shame, though, is that the character he’s gotten stuck in is Frank Mackey, his womanizing and utterly self-adoring character from Magnolia. Why couldn’t he have been Jerry Maguire all the time?
5. Joey Potter R.I.P: Women rumoured to have been interviewed for the job before Tom settled on Katie Holmes: Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johannson and Kate Bosworth. Round two included Megan Mullally, Tara Reid, and, in a strange twist, Nicole Kidman
4. Look At Me!: They say familiarity breeds contempt, though in Tom’s case it seems to be breeding something closer to bold-faced mockery and public derision. It seems Tom is the only person (with the possible exception of Britney Spears) who is riding the ‘any publicity is good publicity’ concept all the way to the bank. In the process he has become arguably the biggest star in the world, but also the most reviled celebrity villain in 20-years. Who would want that? Answer: Frank T.J. Mackey.
3. What’s in a Name?: Sure the letters in ‘Suri’ are all in ‘Cruise’, but his whole name is an anagram for ‘costumier,’ or ‘one that makes or supplies costumes.’ Think about it. Okay, you can stop now.
2. Get Thee to a Publicist: Things started going downhill for TC when he canned his long-serving publicist, Pat Kingsley, in 2004. Kingsley was replaced by his sister. He then replaced his sister with real publicist Paul Bloch when everyone started making fun of him all the time. For Tom, a publicist is like a less-crazy-mask, and it appears Pat Kingsley was a really good one.
1. The Sky’s the Limit: In his new unauthorized biography, Andrew Morton suggests that baby Suri was conceived Rosemary’s Baby-style, using Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s frozen sperm to impregnate Katie Holmes. Absurd? Sure, but when Tom’s involved, you could almost believe it. Tom Cruise is officially capable of anything.
Written By: Martin Flanagan