Tom Cruise and the Water Pistol

[apolla]

Right. Some of you might've noticed a post I wrote about Tom Cruise. The gist was basically "Wah wah, grow up, it's just a water pistol."

Then I thought on it some more, and was reminded of a joke I once found only half funny:

John Lennon once predicted he'd live to be 93. It wasn't one of his better predictions, but it was still better than "Don't worry Yoko, it's only a water pis-"

I found the joke amusing because it was well-crafted, but it also made me sad. And it has reminded me why perhaps last night wasn't all that funny.

In these post Tate Murders, post-Lennon world, celebrities really are hounded. Back in Days Of Yore, the Apple Scruffs could hang about outside the offices all day and aside from occasional snippets of conversation, they got a song dedicated to them by George. Back in Days Of Yore, if a celebrity wanted to piss off on holiday for a week or six and just be alone, it would happen. Sure, The Burton-Taylor Show got followed when it first broke, but the general rule was that if celebrities were photographed and shoved in the media, it was because they wanted to be there or because something newsworthy was happening (ie a drug bust or divorce or something).

That isn't the way now. Celebs get photographed walking into Starbucks, walking out of Starbucks, getting petrol, going shopping. They get photographed in hotel gardens when they believe themselves to be alone. They get photographed walking down the street or going to work or coming home from work. For some, yes it is a world of their own devising, but a lot of the time it isn't.

John Lennon got murdered on his own front doorstep (figuratively of course- he actually had more of a front gatehouse) by a fan he'd given an autograph to earlier. Sharon Tate got murdered by a guy who'd been hanging round the hippie-dippie set for ages.

So no, I was wrong 15 minutes ago. It wasn't really very funny at all because we don't know who the fuck these guys were. It's not the same as say, C4's cheeky Steve Jones, who can say anything in his cute Welsh accent before snogging Pamela Anderson. It's not like Jonathan Ross giving Nicole a light grilling or taking the mickey out of Jane Fonda. We don't know who the fuck these people working freelance for C4 actually are. There's no precedent.

More than that, there's the Golden Rule of Comedy: it's only actually funny if everyone thinks so. The more I think of it, the more it smacks of bullies in a playground amusing themselves but nobody else. Did anyone in their right mind think that someone like Tom Cruise would actually find that funny? It's not a joke, it's humiliation and that is never, ever funny.

So I've deleted the previous post without reservation. Tom Cruise takes life too seriously IMO and Tomandkatie smacks of summer blockbuster publicity stunt, but that doesn't give someone the right to humiliate and (probably) really shake the guy up. I'm sure he's got enough reasons in this world to be scared of things, he doesn't need a bunch of publicity-seeking wankers to add to the bunch.