I am angry about this whole Tom Cruise thing that has blown up since Veterans Day.
For those not tracking, a story was released by TMZ with the headline: Tom Cruise – My Job’s As Hard as Fighting in Afghanistan.
If you are like most people and you are just scrolling through Facebook or Twitter early on Veterans Day, and your eyes glide over a photo of Tom Cruise next to that headline, you are likely to feel your blood pressure rise and anger generate deep in your chest. That’s what happened to me. I thought – “No way would he say that, what an idiot.”
So, I clicked the link to learn more.
At that point, I’d gather, I’d already done more than 90% of the people who reacted to the headline.
Here is the damning quote, which TMZ says it got from legal documents it obtained:
First, the Middle East — Tom says his location shoots are just like serving a tour in Afghanistan, “That’s what it feels like. And certainly on this last movie, it was brutal. It was brutal.”
And that’s it. That is the quote that warranted TMZ to write the headline claiming that Tom Cruise exclaimed that his job is as hard as fighting in Afghanistan.
I read that line and I thought – “Well, it sounds like he’s simply saying that making a movie can be exhausting.” As someone who has been on the set of a major blockbuster, I would agree.
I clicked away from the TMZ piece, happy to have discovered the truth, knowing that it was just TMZ being inflammatory.
Hours later and the damage had already been done. Outrage from the military sphere. Mock articles on the Duffle Blog. A scathing video from Action Figure Therapy. Tom Cruise became the perfect heel for Veterans Day. A wealthy Hollywood type who is already known for being eccentric, supposedly claiming he has it as bad as American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. It serves as the perfect story to capture how removed from reality people can be, and helps shine a light on the civil-military divide.
Only, the whole thing is spectacle and manufactured outrage. I was able to tell from the TMZ story itself – BY READING IT – that the claim made in the headline was hyperbole. And then, the next day, more information emerged explaining the context in which Tom Cruise said what he said:
The comments come in a section of the deposition where Cruise is being asked about time he has spent away from daughter Suri, either because of film or other commitments.
“Now your counsel has publicly equated your absence from Suri for these extended periods of time as being analogous to someone fighting in Afghanistan,” opposing counsel asks him. “Are you aware of that?”
“I didn’t hear the Afghanistan,” Cruise replies. “That’s what it feels like and certainly on this last movie it was brutal. it was brutal.”
“Do you believe that the situations are the same?” Cruise is asked.
“Oh come on,” Cruise says, “you know, we’re making a movie.”
So not only was Tom Cruise simply responding to a question asked in regards to the feeling of separation that comes about from being away from his family while making movies, which is indeed analogous to someone being deployed, but he even goes on to scoff at the idea that those two situations are analogous: “Oh come on,” he says, indicating how silly the comparison is in the first place (even though I don’t think it’s that silly a comparison).
Facts don’t matter. The damage was done.
People – veterans especially – love to get outraged. Ranger Up posted an article naming Tom Cruise as the “Douche of the Week” and to their credit they removed the article once more information became available.
And now, Mark Wahlberg, who is out promoting his new movie Lone Survivor, is the hero of the internet because in an apparent reaction to what Tom Cruise did not say, he rants:
“For actors to sit there and talk about ‘Oh I went to SEAL training,’ and I slept on the — I don’t give a fuck what you did,” Wahlberg exclaimed. “You don’t do what these guys did. For somebody to sit there and say my job was as difficult as somebody in the military’s. How fucking dare you. While you sit in a makeup chair for two hours.”
“I don’t give a shit if you get your ass busted,” the tirade continued. “You get to go home at the end of the day. You get to go to your hotel room. You get to order fucking chicken. Or your steak. Whatever the fuck it is.”
It’s all nonsense because people aren’t actually reading these stories and thinking critically about them – they’re just reacting to the headlines in the way that they want to react so that whatever worldview they hold is validated.
As it turns out, Mark Wahlberg was asked whether his comments were a reaction to Tom Cruise, to which he said they were not.
As you know, facts don’t matter. Only outrage matters.
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Carrying the Gun 