Tom Cruise in London.

Congratulations Tom & Katie!
Unless you’ve had your head (literally) in the sand for the past couple days, you’ve probably seen Tom Cruise somewhere in your living room. Most likely he’s been in that square thing that all of your furniture is pointed towards!
I love Tom Cruise, in as heterosexual of a way as I can say it! I think he is a great actor, and if I were a girl, I guess I would like him for other reasons too. But I’m a guy. My theory that I am about to talk about here on the blog is in no way a criticism of Tom Cruise, or the Tom Cruise industry. It’s just..... a theory.
OK... you know how we’ve all seen the incident of the past few days where Tom Cruise is calmly giving an interview in London, flashing those whiter-than-whites and just being all around genial.... and then.... SQUIRT!
He is blasted in the face with water from a fake microphone?
If you have not seen this, then, not only do I feel dorky about going on with my theory, but also, the rest of this blog won’t be very interesting.
But, suffice it to say, our Tom gets splooshed with water in as rude and unexpected a manner as possible!
Orrrrrr..... was it?
Was it as unexpected as it appears to be?
This has been bugging me all day at work, because I saw the clip once again while I was having my morning coffee, actually as I was just leaving my apartment. As I drove to work, for some reason I kept re-playing it in my mind, and something does not seem to quite..... fit.

Let me re-create the scene as I recall it on TV.
It happened yesterday. Sunday.
Here is perhaps THEE most powerful man in Hollywood, a movie-star mogul.... a monolith of the modern motion picture industry. He is giving an interview when a jet of water splashes him in the $20 million-a-picture face, and he sort of lurches back a bit, half-laughing, and spluttering some of the water out of his mouth, wiping his eyes and so forth.
He then asks the interviewer, “Now why did you do that?” or “Why would you do that?”
The guy sort of turns to leave, and Tom says “No no no no no, don’t leave. Don’t run away. I asked you a question? Why would you do that? I’m answering your questions, I’m giving you an interview, and then you do that. That is extremely rude. You know what? You are a jerk. That was very jerky.”
Camera fades to the flustered bodyguards and whatnot....

The above is not verbatim, but this is essentially the gist of it. Of what transpired.
Now... my questions are as follows?
In today’s world, where (germ-wise) you could literally put liquid death in a syringe if you really wanted to, isn’t Tom’s reaction a bit bland? The stuff went right in his mouth! WHO KNOWS what it might have been? Nowadays, such an action is tantamount to attempted murder. If you do not believe me, ask any police officer of the procedures that instantly go into effect if someone being apprehended spits on them! I can tell you one thing. It involves quite a bit more than making note of the fact that the perpetrator is a jerk!
My theory is simply that Cruise’s bodyguards would not have left Tom to verbally fend for himself in this instance. NO WAY! That reporter would have been hauled away. We would have SEEN “the war of the worlds” all right! Way before it hit the theatres!
Secondly, if the holder of the microphone (hereafter referred to in cop-lingo as “The Perp”)... if The Perp really had it in for Mr. Cruise, wouldn’t he have made some sort of statement when invited by Mr. Cruise to do so? Let’s say he hated Tom Cruise, and this is why he did what he did. Well, why didn’t he SAY SOMETHING? In other words.... what kind of a POINT was he trying to make (other than possibly ruining his career and/or getting his Press privileges taken from him).... HERE WAS YOUR CHANCE TO SAY IT BUDDY.... AND YOU SAID NOTHING!
These two things, coupled with Mr. Cruise’s overall Gandhi-like unretaliative equanimity about the whole affair, make me suspicious that this entire episode was a media stunt geared at redeeming public opinion about Tom Cruise, as of late.
In a word, I think we’ve been SPUN!
My theory? The only words missing in the snippets we will see on Entertainment Tonight (tonight) are “Action” and “Cut”.

To back up a bit, what kind of negative public opinion am I referring to?
Well, lately the world-at-large has been somewhat critical of Tom’s outspoken views of Scientology, for one thing. Secondly, when he started jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch the other day, people thought maybe he lost his marbelios!
And then, the horrifically romantic (I’m not being sarcastic) engagement to Katie Holmes after a mere seven weeks of courtship... the spin doctors may have been prescribing some footage of examples of emotional stability to offset some of these things, and if they were doing so, they could not have procured a better visual example of it than “MAN’S MICROPHONE SPLOOSHES INTO TOM CRUISE’S FACE!”
Cool as a very expensive and well-dressed cucumber he was!
I’ll admit, I was, and remain, impressed.

On the show I was watching this morning, amid the banter after showing the clip, the weather girl was asked for her opinion of how Tom handled the situation and her response was:
“Well, the microphone man is just lucky he didn’t do that to Russell Crowe!”
BINGO!
That is the spin! That is exactly the desired effect. Cool cool Tom.
And you know what? He is cool.
What I am suggesting here is in no way a criticism of the person of Tom Cruise. If anything, if my theory has more than speculative hypothesis to it, I think it is a sad indictment upon the viewing public, moreso than on the actor or his industry.
It is sad that we make these people go to such lengths to try and demonstrate to us that they are people too. It is unfair of us.

What’s my personal verdict?
Well, I want to flip the TV on and see if I can catch Entertainment Tonight. I want to see that clip one more time, because I think it involves some of the finest acting since.... well, since that courtroom scene in A Few Good Men.