Saturday, June 25, 2005

Thanks to Tom Cruise - now that's entertainment!!

There is a scene from "Shawshank Redemption" where Tim Robbin's character asks the warden, "How can you be so obtuse?" To which the warden angrily banishes Robbins to several days of solitary confinement. That's an honest, realistic event.

Yesterday, on the "Today" show, America's favorite whipping boy, Tom Cruise, went off the standard promotional script ("Oh, Mr. X is great to work with, always cracking us up on the set.") and got in to a substantive debate with Matt "How's my hair"Laurer.

The pros and cons of drugs, therapy, and Scientology are for other posts - but let's sit back and enjoy the fact that a major motion picture actor called a major media mouthpiece "GLIB" - and Matt took it smiling.

For those of us who only studied vocabulary for the SAT's here's the dictionary definition
1: marked by lack of intellectual depth; "glib generalizations"; "a glib response to a complex question"
2: having only superficial plausibility; "glib promises"; "a slick commercial"
3: artfully persuasive in speech; "a glib tongue"; "a smooth-tongued hypocrite."

Mr. Cruise, thanks for turning on the media which is conveniently turning on you.

News media, take note. Just following the pack and staying on message, you may look pretty in the short term - but when someone finally stands up to you, you will loose all credibility. And that won't come back easily.

Honesty can be very refreshing....

3 comments:

alex supertramp said...

while I appreciate the need to berate the despicable current status of the media - are you really holding up Tom "scientology is a real religion and everything else is total bunk of course I'm not brainwashed L Ron Hubbard is a genius not a paranoid hack" Cruise as your poster boy of honesty and truth?

Studiodave said...

Not in the least. The point was specifically that instead of a softball interview, Matt Lauer should have taken the gloves off instead of trying to "respect" Tom's opinion. For example, "if Scientology is the answer, how come you are getting married for a 4th time?"

"When you say research, what did you research beyond pamphlets haded out in a meeting."

"Does it really cost $360,000 to become a Scientologist?"

"Is it true somone is following Katie? Why?"

"You know they might be able to find some medication for this "rage / paranoia" thing you got going on.

Thanks for reading Alex!

Otto Man said...

How about asking him questions about Scientology? "Do you really believe aliens came to earth ages ago, were demolished by atomic bombs and now live inside us as tiny particles that determine our happiness? Really? OK, what was it like working with Tim Robbins?"