If I wanted to write a truly epic, bruising, crushing, barnburning, paddywhacking, frankenfurter, Fahrvergnügen takedown of this frankly thin and tossed-off interview about Tom Cruise, I’d probably have to dip back into my copy of Going Clear and also google around a lot for responses by Cruise et al re: Going Clear. If anyone wants to pay me to do that, I will, but tumblr.com does not pay for these words, so I won’t.
I will say that this piece, which you can find by googling “tom cruise the awl” has stuck in my craw for a 24-hour period and then these awl editors or whoever they are’s responses have stuck in my craw for the better part of since I read them. My craw is getting too full of Tom Cruise shit!
I gotta get some of this shit out. To: “Matt Buchanan” and “Choire Sicha”, if you have google alerts set up, which for the former I doubt since that seems like a common name but whatever, feel free to respond to my response as you see fit.
Like most people on the internet, I’ll start my case by damning myself. I am not a journalist. I may not have a dictionary definition sense of what journalism is. From your comments, it seems that
>journalism is presenting raw interviews with which the editors disagree.
This interview on the awl, by an LA based entertainment journalist and an LA based film writer, is a few thousand word blowjob fest about how great and misunderstood Tom Cruise is. Tom Cruise is an evil person. Tom Cruise stars in a major motion picture coming very soon to a theatre near you. Connect the dots, reader, because journalistic outlet the awl has done all its journalism for you by commisioning and publishing this interview, which, see above.
If this is what journalism is, then I can see why it’s not been doing so good lately.
Tom Cruise, if Going Clear, a best selling, well sourced, turned into a nationally televised documentary film on HBO, is to be believed, has done the folowing:
stole away Nicole Kidman’s children
uses slave labor for construction and household purposes
supports the terroristic activities of the church as a means to take money from American taxpayers
was the best man, twice, to the leader of the church, David Miscavige, a man who is undeniably evil
There is so, so much more to Cruise’s involvement with the church, but see the first paragraph. Just read the book if you’re interested.
Some common counterpoints to the “Tom Cruise is evil” line of thinking:
“But all religions are evil to some extent or whatever, look at the crusades or 9-11.”
Yes, all religions have extremists and sometimes those extremists are in power, even. Yet we are not talking about religions over time; we’re talking about Scientology right now and for the last fifty or so years. All religions have extremists and they also have aherents who denounce those extremists, unless you’re saying all Muslims are terrorists ore all Christians hate gays. Scientology is by definition a fantatical, extreme religion and has built within, by nature, mechanisms for encouraging extremism and silencing (via kidnapping) dissenters.
“But Tom Cruise is probably just brainwashed.”
Holding a set of beliefs because of being brainwashed or suseptible to influence or whatever does not excuse culpability. If it did, we’d never see extremists as a bad thing. Tom Cruise, as a rich, powerful, public figure can disrupt, clean up, and/or redeem scientology if he chooses to, and he has chosen at every path to support it and its practices. He’s not an ignorant man. Cruise has traveled and met people and seen the world. All signs point to him fully supporting the church, despite (some? I guess? sort of) public criticism and much evidence of the church’s evil.
“Tom Cruise probably doesn’t really believe in all the extreme stuff, it’s just a celebrity thing.”
See the first two answers. He’s a powerful public figure who’s seen the evidence and chosen to support the church. He supports the church with his name and image and with his money. It’s not like he just wears a button or put a sticker on his car. Cruise stood up as best man, twice, for a man who I personally think of as one of the most evil people I’ve ever read about.
Oh yeah, journalism. Lawrence Wright, the guy who wrote Going Clear is a journalist. This amazing and thorough New York Times article about the unravelling of the Voting Rights Act is journalism. That interview on the awl is just some shameless (hopefully paid? I’m sure your John Herrman could explain the wonders of native advertising) plug for a pathetic, evil man who won’t go away.
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