I'm OK with any drug that will get you to watch my movies.

Columnist Reuben Navarrette gives an interesting defense of Tom Cruise in this morning's Chicago Tribune. An excerpt:

The problem isn't that celebrities have opinions. It's that the rest of society is quick to treat them as experts. They're not experts. They're movie stars with opinions. And they should be free to express their opinions, and the rest of us should be free to discount them if they don't hold up...

...Cruise kicked off a debate over a subject that a lot of people don't feel comfortable discussing: whether Americans are too quick to turn to prescription drugs and whether their doctors are too quick to prescribe them... that's a hugely important discussion and it shouldn't matter who gets the ball rolling...

That's the discussion we need to be having. And it's finally under way, no thanks to the scores of newspaper reporters and radio talk show hosts who piled on Tom Cruise... all of a sudden, the issue went from being about drugs to being about celebrity and Scientology...

Do you suppose it's possible for an entire profession -- in this case, the news media -- to suffer from attention-deficit disorder?

Navarrette raises an interesting point, one worth considering: it's not the celebrities who are proclaiming their expertise, it's a fawning media that bestows the crown of wisdom with one hand, then knocks it off with a cudgel held in the other.

My problem with this argument is that it paints a celebrity as an innocent victim, when in fact that celebrity is usually well aware that whatever he says will get instant coverage and have credibility conferred upon it.

Cruise may be a fool, but he's no idiot. He's an expert in one thing, and one thing only: getting people to pay attention to him. Of late, he's been unusually desperate, and remarkably successful, in that, if nothing else.

He has shed light on an important issue, but that was incidental to his true aim: he is a human battery that needs a spotlight in order to maintain its charge. He used his few active intelligence cells to get that light to swivel in his direction, just as his charge was about to vanish.

Now he's recharged.  Look out.

--T.A.

Comments

[Danny]

Also, Cruise IS presenting himself as an "expert" on the history of psychiatry and the use of prescription drugs in this country, as crazy as that sounds, he's not just saying it's his opinion. Granted, we all know he's just a movie star who's read some articles and is heavily involved in a so-called religion that indoctrinates against therapy and prescription drugs so, of course, WE need to use our discernment to dismiss his ridiculous conclusions, but I really don't think that the hoopla surrounding his comments is the media's fault in this case. Too bad he couldn't limit his comments to the overuse of prescription drugs in this country which would have led to some very interesting high-profile discussions. But his recent comments reveal an arrogance out of control, especially when he condemns a fellow celebrity (Brooke Shields) who clearly has benefitted greatly from certain treatments and who is in a position to truly help some women who are suffering from post-partum depression and don't know where to turn. His public statements about her are offensive and potentially dangerous. Cruises's recent pissing match with Matt Lauer on the Today Show makes for great TV but of course we don't want Matt OR Tom diagnosing our potential mental disorders—I don't care which one of them thinks he is better informed!

Again, Tom Cruise can say what he wants and we're fools to even care, but it's just unfortunate that he doesn't seem to have the ability to frame the discussion in a way that would be productive. If this is the kind of one-sided hysterical twaddle that Scientology promotes, I say, "have a good marriage, Katie Holmes, but stay out of all those scary buildings on Hollywood Boulevard!"

[david]

You go, boy!

[Sarah]

Yes, and he has a point with the "too quick to prescribe, but he said he didn't believe is psychology. That includes therapy without medication. That is what got me angry.