Confession time. I am not a Tom Cruise fan. Never have been, never will be. I’ve never seen any of his movies. Not even Top Gun which is my mother’s favourite film. I also have a friend whose name is Maverick but I don’t think he was named after the character played by Scientology’s golden boy. Anyway, that’s not the reason why I wrote this BaBS post. It’s because of a rant. Yep, you read that right.
An audio recording has been leaked from the set of the upcoming Mission Impossible 7 where Cruise is heard screaming in a full-on rant threatening to have people fired if the crew didn’t abide by the COVID-19 protocols in place. This came from the Sun and was posted to Twitter. I’m not going to post the clip but I will provide the Tweet in a link.
Now, this is not your average Babes Against Bullshit rant. Normally, I just go nuts for a thousand or so words, but this time I’m not going to. The reason is I just cannot decide how I feel about this, like at all. It has nothing to do with my feelings towards Cruise and his god-like status within Scientology. It has more to do with the idea of him feeling like he needs to go full-on stark raving maniac just to get the point across.
If It Was Anyone Else…
I have no love for cults of any kind and that’s what Scientology is. If there’s anyone who wants to disagree with me, please go right ahead, but I’m not going to justify myself to sympathisers of a ‘religion’ which allegedly wouldn’t allow Katie Holmes to scream during the birth of her child. Anyway, this is not about my hatred for this group, it’s about one of the world’s biggest celebrities telling people off.
If it was anyone else who had been recorded in the middle of a full on rant, sure, I’d back them up one hundred percent, even if I didn’t like them. However, I have mixed feelings about Cruise doing what he did.
Yes, the crew was in the wrong for constantly breaching COVID-19 protocols. Did they actually care about the production reaching its November 2021 release date? We don’t know we only have so much information.
However, should it have been Cruise who made the issue known? Yes and no. Sure, this is his production as he is a producer but he is not the only one. There are three others, including the director who is also the screenwriter on the film. Were they so ignorant to the idea of people breaking this rules that Tom had to step in?
Who knows what actually went on. The reason I’m so up in the air about this is because Cruise is the one in charge. He might not be the director, but he does a load of power and that including having the right to fire people.
We Do Not Know The Full Story
Now, it is a bit hard to say if Cruise is in the right to go off at the crew for breaching protocols the way he did. We have no idea what the full story is unless we were there when he started screaming.
I’m never going to like the man but he was kinda in the right, but to threaten people’s jobs if they don’t comply with rules, is not cool. Yes, people should have been doing as they were told, but yelling at them was not the right thing to do.
The cast and crew should’ve been called together and told very sternly that they had to follow the rules otherwise they’d be facing the possibility of losing their jobs. One threat would’ve been enough, especially if Cruise is in charge as one of four producers. There is at least a half dozen solutions I can think of where a rant was not necessary.
Whether Cruise was bluffing when he said he would have people fired from production if they didn’t do the right thing is unclear. However, he is one of these Hollywood heavy weights that gets shit done as the saying goes. Did he think that his influence as the star and a producer on the film would be enough get the lower crew to listen?
Don’t Rant At Me!
Now, I know some people will probably read this and see me as stupid for even having a problem with Tom Cruise and his rant. But, this is my blog and I have a right to express my opinions. The pandemic is a dangerous thing and when it comes to Hollywood, everything was shut down to begin with so studios could work out what to do.
I’ve been an Entertainment blogger for a while now and I’ve seen the devastation COVID-19 has caused across all the avenues of the industry. A load of shows that I follow were shut down earlier in the year and were unable of finish filming. Films that people have been excited for were pushed back months and even years because of the virus.
I am not against a rant, but going to full on scream fest should be out of the question. What did Cruise hope to achieve? Did his power become so great that it caused people to compare him with the head of Scientology, David Miscavige? We will never know.
