Thursday, June 23, 2005

Everybody's talking about it...

...yet I'm not sure what to say about it. "It" being the alleged 16-day abduction, or seduction, of actress Katie Holmes as performed by the inmates of the infamous insane asylum known as Scientology, and as reported by that equally infamous propaganda machine, Fox News.

Did this event actually occur? I have no idea. But I was amused to learn that the commercializers wasted no time: You can already purchase "Free Katie" t-shirts and buttons.

The Fox News article hints that the Hubbardians first attempted to wrap their talons around Scarlet Johanssen. Personally, I never cared for her work; she always struck me as the kind of ninny-noodle who might buy into L. Ron Hubbard's theory that smoking cures lung cancer. Even so, I'm glad to learn that she did not accept the tale of Xenu the Makrabian at face value.

Incidentally, Tom Cruise -- an actor whose work I much admire -- not long ago sniffily told a reporter that Scientology has no connection to the alien mythos. Is it possible that he has yet to learn of Xenu and his evil ways?

A long time ago, I asked someone in the industry (not a powerful or well-known someone -- just a someone) why no-one had done a biopic on L. Ron Hubbard. "No one would dare," I was told; "They're too powerful in this town." In recent years, Scientology has had a declining influence on members of the general public, yet the cult still represents a major fault line within Hollywood. You can rib Scientology in an oblique fashion (as on that old Simpsons episode), but you can't talk about Hubbard's chicanery directly.

And that may explain why Fox has put some weight behind this story. Conservatives love to bash Hollywood, since red-staters believe that the movie industry engages in a massive conspiracy against all that is holy and decent. Scientology is Hollywood's darkest, silliest secret, and thus provides the reactionary press with a convenient cudgel.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes indeed, Bush's poll numbers are swirling down the dumper and the non-celebrity White Woman in Peril stories are becoming old hat, so they're cranking it up a notch: now it's America's insufferably cute, wholesome, Betty Boop-voiced Caucasian sweetheart in the nefarious clutches of the brainwashing, soul-sapping sci-fi cult!

Methinks the whole Tom 'n' Katie thing is starting to give off the unmistakably putrid reek of Manufactured National Obsession, by Prince Machiavelli. Don't fall for this aromatic distraction.

Barry Schwartz said...

Does anyone want to see my Leader beans?