Why Do We Make An Example Of Tom Cruise?

First of all, let me just say that going to work every day is really hard. This is something you realize when you go back to the office after two weeks and are bomb-fucking-barded with business that just haaaas to be sorted on Jan. 5. And this stuff that had been sitting in your inbox while you pretended that your remote email access wasn't working so that you could watch Jerry Maguire again (yes, watched it twice over the vacay)? Well, this makes it impossible to catch up what's happening in the news, and the 352 unread Perez Hilton posts in your Google Reader start to make you about as sane as John Trovolta (didn't miss the "what's autism?" Jett thing—don't worry).

So, I'm easing out of OOO mode by first posting about the sometimes charming, sometimes batshit (or, as J would say, PILLS) crazy that monopolized my couch movie watching during the last lazy days of 2008: Mr. Cruise. What's fascinating about him to me—beyond his omfg-adorable toddler—is that there is seemingly this societal need to make him MEAN something. This week, Stephen Metcalf of Slate wrote a really fascinating article about how Cruise's ups and downs mirror those of the ol' Dow Jones. He explains:

"But note a curious fact about his career: It maps perfectly onto the 25-year bull market in stocks that, like Cruise, is starting to show its age. Nascent in the early '80s, emergent in 1983, dominant in the '90s, suspiciously resilient in the '00s, and, starting in 2005, increasingly prone to alarming meltdowns. For both Cruise and the Dow Jones, more and more leverage is required for less and less performance. Place Cruise next to Nicholson, Newman, and Tracy, and he is a riddle. Place him next to Reagan, and he is not so confounding at all."

And, a couple months ago, I read this ridiculously gripping essay by Anne Peterson (a film studies grad student) about, among other things, how Tom Cruise's couch leap from grace explains what it means to be a celebrity in the age of cum-strewn internet photos. These are far from the only cases, and why is it that T.C. deserves such constant analysis? Think of other actors that came to rise in his era who have lost their edge—guys like Charlie Sheen (hi, crappiest show on television) and John Cusack (Must. Love. Dogs.). They stood for youth and love and whatever else back in the day, and no one thinks about them with such fervor—even C.S.'s n-word voicemails to crazy daisy Denise were just circulated, not broken down, and they knocked the bizarro socks off Cruise's antics.

Img from 1984 c/o People

The question, then: What is it about Mr. Risky Business, Top Gun, and Magnolia? I wish I knew.