Seeing is usually believing. Unless your parents are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
Because then even your baby photos, published in no less an esteemed magazine than Vanity Fair, are greeted with such overpowering scrutiny and skepticism you’d think Abraham Zapruder shot them from a grassy knoll.
But that’s life for Suri Cruise, who, at 41/2 months old, has already been accused of being alien, adopted and even non-existent.
For that, she can blame dad.
Had Cruise never stepped foot on Oprah Winfrey’s sofa in a spasmodic display of affection for Holmes last year or tangled with Brooke Shields over her use of antidepressants while suffering from postpartum depression, Suri’s birth — and life — would likely have never generated such ridicule and ridiculous rumour.
Even the ballyhooed debut of Suri’s pictures — seen on Katie Couric’s first day as the new anchor of the CBS Evening News — failed yesterday to quiet the bloggers flogging conspiracy theories even Fox Mulder would have balked at.
Doesn’t Suri look older than she should? Why does she look like two different babies in two of the photographs? And say, doesn’t she look Asian in one?
Canadian gossip chronicler Elaine Lui of Lainey’s Entertainment Update (www.laineygossip.com), chimed in: “The child is absolutely adorable. Gorgeous, actually. But then again, perhaps I’m biased? Is it just me or do you see a subtle trace of my people in her features?”
At least she suggests Suri is human. One other website doctored the Vanity Fair cover, photoshopping in the demon kid from The Grudge in place of the wee Cruise. (Yes, they were kidding. We think.)
This peculiar brand of attention given to Suri, in fact, makes you long for the days — only a few months ago — when celebrities were taken at their word when they announced they’d reproduced.
Remember the frenzy surrounding superstars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in the months prior to the birth of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt?
Mark Lisanti, editor of the gossip site Defamer.com, does — and sees a few parallels between the two Tinseltown power-parents.
“There was a lot of anticipation about the Brangelina child and it ended because they put the photos out there so quickly; there wasn’t a lot more to say about it. Those pictures coming out so fast set a precedent and it made (the delay of the Cruise photos) seem more strange …
“There is a parallel between these two couples. They both came out about the same time, somewhat unexpectedly. But Pitt and Jolie were really the model of how these things should happen — there was denial while he was married and then they came out and were together, but they were playing the game very well. Every step Tom Cruise took was against the established order of the way things are done and so you had all these crazy conspiracy theories.”
The speculation surrounding Suri’s parentage also feeds into the prevailing image of the New Cruise — a Hollywood bubble boy so self-enamored he doesn’t even realize he’s just one loose widget from entering the Marlon Brando/Michael Jackson zone — which many believe has repelled his fans in droves. (Hence the ho-hum box office tally of Mission Impossible III.)
And baby pictures or no baby pictures, Lisanti doubts Cruise will ever regain his previously invincible lustre. “I think for the majority of people it’s a joke, but I also think there are people who legitimately don’t know what to think.”
Including those who once employed him.
Most recently Paramount chieftain Sumner Redstone not only ended the studio’s long-standing production deal with the actor but publicly reprimanded him for his bizarre off-screen behaviour.
“It never seems to die down,” Lisanti says. “Now you’ve got the career stuff where he’s trying to set up a production company and the fallout of that is still going on.”
Lui agrees Cruise has a long way to go to mend his public persona. But she adds Cruise is on the right track following the charm offensive he’s been mounting in recent weeks. He sent Rosie O’Donnell a bouquet of flowers as she began her stint on The View this week, and he’s apologized to Shields.
Shields revealed this week Cruise came to her home recently to deliver a “heart-felt” apology for his attack — albeit more than a year later, and shortly after he was publicly humiliated by Paramount.
Nonetheless, Lui says, Cruise is playing his cards wisely. “He’s fighting back — he’s salvaging what he can and he’s doing it quite well.”
One piece of advice she has though: he has to stop talking publicly about Scientology. After all, it was his belief in Scientology — which opposes psychiatry and psychiatric drugs — that led to his painfully public spat with Shields.
“We are all religious and we don’t push it on other people, and the way he did it was really offensive to other people. As long as he doesn’t talk about it, he’s going to be fine.”
And there is another cause for some hope in the Cruise camp. Lisanti admits it’s hard to know what the mainstream thinks of either the photos or Cruise. “I want to say it’s a huge media event, but it’s so hard to gauge because on blogs, it’s kind of an echo chamber. All the blogs go crazy, but I don’t know how much the general population is even aware of it.”
Could Suri’s premiere be the next Snakes on a Plane — an event hyped online, but shrugged off everywhere else?
“It’s a little bit like that. Tom Cruise and the media obsession over him is more of a mainstream thing, of course … Maybe he should have had a cameo in Snakes — there would have been a lot of opportunity for hopping on furniture and yelling.”
Says Lui, “When he did the couch-jumping on Oprah and all of us were watching in horror, there were women in the aisles on Oprah screaming and practically fainting.
“These are women who believe that celebrities really are just like us and there’s no such thing as a spin doctor. They still love Tom Cruise, and people should not be writing him off.”
(With files from CP)
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