Is Tom Cruise gay...?

Does anyone care...? Passing a newsagent's on my run yesterday afternoon, I couldn't help but notice how many front pages had Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes splashed all over them, following news on Friday that they are to divorce. With the current crisis besetting the Euro and the news that Barclays manipulated the Libor (and with other major banks under investigation for their part in it), you'd think we'd have something else to talk about. So, in answer to "Does anyone care...?", it seems that people care a great deal about Tom Cruise, his life and his loves.

Following the news of their break up on Friday, Twitter was awash with jokes about Tom finally getting rid of his beard (I should explain that a beard is a term for the pretend female partner a closeted gay man uses to conceal his true sexual orientation - a disguise, if you will). News like this is a goldmine for anyone who fancies themselves as a bit of a wit and Twitter, with its 140 character limit, is the ideal method of delivery for the pithy retort. The beard joke was retweeted until it was threadbare, along with numerous other twitticisms about Tom Cruise and Scientology, Tom Cruise and John Travolta, Tom Cruise's height and, of course, questions about Tom Cruise's sexuality.

Indeed, questions (and inevitably jokes) about Tom Cruise's sexuality have existed for years; they have rumbled on ever since he first entered the public eye in the early 80s. One rumour concerned an alleged homosexual affair he had during the filming of Eyes Wide Shut, the Stanley Kubrick film he made with his then wife, Nicole Kidman. When his attorney got news that letters supporting this affair were to be used in Andrew Morton's biography of Tom Cruise, warnings of legal action were issued. Indeed, his attorney's sledge hammer to crack a nut approach to quash such rumours (and also the reporting of those rumours) has, according to many, wedded the words Tom Cruise to the word gay in the public's mind.

The other word wedded to Tom Cruise is, of course, Scientology. Most of you will be aware that Tom Cruise is a prominent member of the Church of Scientology. Other celebrity members include, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Lisa Marie Presley, Isaac Hayes and Chick Corea. Scientology is a religion that was started in 1953 by science fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard and his wife. Tom Cruise was introduced to Scientology in 1990 by his first wife, Mimi Rogers. Since then he has campaigned for it to be recognised as a religion in Europe. Scientology's opposition to mainstream psychiatry was highlighted when Tom Cruise said, "I think psychiatry should be outlawed". He later went on to criticise actress Brook Shields for using anti-depressants, asserting that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance and that psychiatry is a form of pseudoscience.

Scientology teaches that people are immortal spiritual beings who have forgotten their true nature. Hubbard's views on homosexuality were that it is an aberration and that homosexuals are dangerous to society. In its early history, the Church of Scientology claims to have cured a number of ailments, including "overt homosexuality" by the application of Dianetics - a "science of the mind" that Hubbard invented and is practiced by followers of Scientology (Cruise claims it cured his dyslexia). Has the Church of Scientology changed its stance on homosexuality in recent years? They claim not to dictate sexual preferences but the San Diego branch of the church recently supported Proposition 8, a movement to ban gay marriage in California. If Tom Cruise were gay, he would find himself at odds with a number of his fellow Scientologists.

And it's not just his pronouncements on Scientology that have attracted controversy. Perhaps the most memorable interview Tom Cruise has ever done was the Oprah interview in 2005 where he demonstrated, through some pretty extraordinary behavior, his purported love for Katie Holmes. As many have observed, his actions during the interview, such as dropping to one knee, punching the air and jumping up and down on the sofa, made him look rather foolish. In acting terms, it's a performance that's more pantomime than Method Acting; it's the performance of a desperate man - a man desperate to dispell any rumours that he might be gay? The phrase that springs to mind is, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks". Here it is again for those of you with strong stomachs.

So, is Tom Cruise gay? I certainly hope not!

1 Year Ago:

Best run of the week...

Run 30/06/2012 13:03
Distance	5:06 km	Time	28:24
Pace	5:37 min/km	Cadence	81 spm
Comments: Sunny but blustery.

Run 29/06/2012 17:39
Distance	5.30 km	Time	31:39
Pace	5:58 min/km	Cadence	80 spm
Comments: Sunny.