celebrity gossip, academic style

The blog lives! Sometimes, you teach at a college with a two-week Spring Break, and that Spring Break is extended by an unexpected flu, and suddenly it’s been nearly three weeks since your last blog post. But trust that I spent that break collecting and processing ideas, as well as attending the national conference for media studies scholars (SCMS in L.A.), throwing my best friend a bridal shower in Seattle, and frolicking sunburning and eating my way through my beloved Austin. There should be ample posting in the weeks to come. If you’re even slightly sports-minded, do check out my recent post on Bill Simmons (aka ‘The Sports Guy’) over at Antenna. While you’re there, I’d also recommend looking at star scholar Diane Negra’s brief piece on Sandra Bullock and “Transforming the Academy’s Winners into Losers.”

So Tom Cruise. I’ve thought a tremendous amount about this man and his star image: my first published article (parts of which make me cringe, but whatever) was on Perez Hilton and his treatment of Cruise; this Fall, I wrote about Cruise’s embarrassing attempts to play the new celebrity game, joining Twitter and revamping his website.

And as much as I still believe that Cruise fundamentally misunderstands how stardom works today, you’ve got to hand it to him: he might be back. Not only is he requeued for Mission Impossible 4, but he’s got a new summer blockbuster, Knight and Day.

The trailer speaks for itself, but I can only say that it plays up the very best, most likable, and most charismatic aspects of the Cruise image. There’s not an eyepatch or a bad British accent to be found. Judge for yourself:

So why does this work? First of all, it’s a good trailer. Muse’s “Uprising” at the end is particularly well-chosen. But it works for Cruise for two major reasons:

1.) It reactivates the very best memories of Cruise.

He is cocky here, but not ridiculously so. It’s as if Maverick made Top Gun, switched to covert ops, spent some time as Ethan Hunt, and developed a few neuroses. But now here is he is — still looking young (there is ZERO DOUBT that he’s had some very expensive and very skillful procedures performed) and active and not like a nerdy dad who tries to do the awkward white man air motorcycle dance on BET. He’s not acting serious, he’s not yelling catchphrases that will be ridiculed. In short, he holds himself like a movie star. There’s a sense of regained confidence. And it doesn’t make me cringe or want to make a YouTube remix with him jumping on couches.

2.) There is no explicit romance.

You may disagree with me here, but I think this is absolutely crucial in order to get people into the theaters. There may be actual romance in the film; Cruise and Diaz may make out, they may have sex, who knows; it certainly seems to point in that direction. But there’s no kiss in the trailer. And the reasoning for this, at least to my mind, is that people are not ready to watch Tom Cruise being romantic — Cruise romance is still equated with Katie Holmes mind control, Eiffel Tower proposing, attempts at dirty dancing and above-mentioned couch jumping, and the visceral repulsion is still too strong. When Tom Cruise imploded his career back in 2006, I was most struck by how negatively women of all ages responded to him — many of whom used to consider him one of the sexiest, most attractive, and most romantic of stars. Whether middle-aged, in their late 20s, or teens, the overwhelming response was yuck.

In the end, if Cruise wants to regain his place as leading man and major star, he’ll have a.) make himself less of a punchline and 2.) disassociate himself from the yuck factor. He’s spent the last two years taking slow and deliberate steps in that direction — and grosses for Knight and Day (and the publicity leading up to it) will serve as harbingers for Cruise’s future in Hollywood.

So you watched the trailer. Does he still yuck you out? Or might you see this film?