semiotic_pirate | Tom Cruise Insanity Defense

Okay, okay... Over the past few days I have found through my f-list many of the various Tom Cruise parodies about his recent Oprah interview. I have also seen many references to Scientology, people talking about it, what it is, and so forth. Just for the heck of it, I'm jumping on the bandwagon.

I just find interesting the progression of video clips that were appearing on the net. It started with just the plain clip, showing Cruise jumping off his couch and "attacking" Oprah in a fit of manic glee about Katie. Then someone put in those fabulous pink lightning bolts that coruscated from Cruise, shocking Oprah, and adding to the feeling that this was an "attack." Many of you may have seen this already.

There's a photoblog of the show here which has a link to someone else who is parodying this...

There is also a video clip titled In Search of Cruise Control -- The Video which is a montage of the Oprah interview, sans electric bolts, that has a hilarious commentary and set of comments below it.

Then there was this via

shogunhb where the clip is multiplied to fill the screen in a wallpaper like manner, with Star Wars like writing overlaid to say "Cruise Kills Oprah." Yes, the addition of the Frankenstein background music is PERFECT.

But then, my sweety

crabbyolbastard was poking around and found this which, yes, he couldn't help but download it and now I give it to you.

There are also the clips out there which depict Cruise getting sprayed by a water spraying microphone in Britian. Yep, sick jokes of a sexual nature were bandied about when that started getting passed around.

< a href="http://youcantmakeitup.blogspot.com/2005/06/cruise-uncontrollable.html">Here, for those of you who are interested, is an animated (well, it has funny pictures representing Cruise during the interview transcript) interview transcript of the Lauer debacle. Now if only I could find a altered video of Cruise in his interview with Lauer, hands starting to glow when he gets angry...

Here is the latest article via CNN that deals with this issue. It is truly a funny read, myah shee! You're gonna watch all the clips and laugh shee!

What's going on with Tom Cruise?

Once untouchable star lately subject of jokes

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Tom Cruise remains one of Hollywood's biggest stars, but since his manic, couch-hopping appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" last month, he also has leaped to the forefront of celebrity punch lines.

The 42-year-old actor has become the butt of jokes from late-night television comedians, tabloid columnists, Internet spoof artists and pranksters in the midst of promoting one of this summer's most heavily publicized films.

Cruise drew the kind of attention most celebrities go out of their way to avoid in late May when he spent the better part of an hourlong interview with Winfrey giddily professing his love for actress Katie Holmes, 26.

Footage of the twice-married Cruise on "Oprah," jumping on the guest sofa, dropping to one knee to pump his fist and ushering Holmes on stage to declare, "I love this woman!" has been played repeatedly. Bootleg copies were selling on eBay for $20.

The interview triggered suspicions of a shameless publicity stunt to promote his new film, "War of the Worlds," and hers, "Batman Begins." The two upped the ante weeks later with a Paris news conference to announce their engagement.

The couple got engaged at the Eiffel Tower just two months after revealing their relationship. No wedding date has been announced.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson called the romance an unintentionally hilarious act of "frantic, naked desperation."

"It's a sign of the celebrity-market bubble that a bona fide, top-gun movie star has to make such a spectacle of himself just to stand out from the crowd. There's such a glut of celebrities that they'll soon have to begin storing the surplus in silos in Iowa," he wrote.

Adding to the controversy has been Cruise's recent intense public discussions of his belief in Scientology, the church founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, including criticism of actress Brooke Shields for revealing that she had taken antidepressants.

In a testy exchange on NBC's "Today" show Friday, Cruise called psychiatry a "pseudo science" and told co-host Matt Lauer: "You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."

The Tom Cruise we think about

Matt Lauer and Tom Cruise on the "Today" show.

Cruise's behavior has ignited speculation that he might damage his image and undermine the success of his movies.

"He needs to remain enough of a blank slate that we can forget about him as a person when we see his movies," said Marty Kaplan, a University of Southern California professor of communications. "Whether we can still suspend disbelief, or whether all we can think about while watching him act is L. Ron Hubbard and Oprah will be measured by his movie's grosses."

The fallout also has begotten a kind of open season of snickers rare for a movie star of Cruise's stature, putting him into a category of big-game celebrity prey recently occupied by the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck.

"Tom and Katie got engaged on Friday and, once again, the media somehow found out about it," late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel said on his show last week. "If we promise to go see 'War of the Worlds,' will you please make this stop?"

In Britain, a group of TV pranksters squirted Cruise in the face with water when he stepped up to a faux microphone. They were arrested and an apology was issued, but film clips of the incident circulated on the Internet.

Separately, a short Internet spoof on the "Oprah" interview, titled "Tom Cruise Kills Oprah," (http://tcruiseko.ytmnd.com/) shows the actor jumping out of his seat to clasp hands with Winfrey, shooting simulated bolts of electric current into her body as he laughs madly.

Another Web site was hawking "Free Katie" T-shirts, stickers and coffee mugs.

'I'm going to speak my mind'

Allan Mayer of the Hollywood "crisis P.R. firm" Sitrick & Co. said Cruise's recent soul-baring reflects his decision to cast off the carefully controlled "packaging" that publicists provide most stars.

By firing long-time personal publicist Pat Kingsley and replacing her with his sister, Mayer said, Cruise "has decided, 'I'm not going to be very carefully groomed when I speak in public. I'm going to speak my mind ... and let the chips fall where they may.' "

Mayer said reactions to Cruise invite comparisons to actress Jane Fonda, who sparked a backlash with her anti-war activism during the Vietnam era.

"A lot of people will tell you that ruined her career," Mayer said. "But it certainly made people look at her differently, and it gave her very strong positives, but very strong negatives. And that's the territory Cruise may be going into."

Mayer also contrasted Cruise's deliberately self-induced spectacle with the buzz swirling around "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who have been far more circumspect about the nature of their off-screen relationship.

"They have at least gone through the motions of trying to indicate that they don't want this to be the subject of public discussion, that they want to talk about their movie. And whether that's disingenuous or not, it's certainly reassuring to the public."

Cruise "is a long way from being in career trouble," Mayer said. "As long as the movies that (he) makes open strong, it doesn't matter what he does. ... It's strictly a business proposition."

One of my favorite comments about Cruise so far has been: "aha, so the real secret is that Palpatine was a Thetan" when Cruise was refered to as Darth Cruise