Attaboy

I always thought modern Hollywood shunned overt religious practices. Look at all the fuss raised over The Passion of the Christ after its release last year. There are people in the movie business who are devoutly religious, but the general attitude out there seems to be keeping the practice and discussion of those beliefs at arm’s length.

Except if you’re Hollywood’s current king of the crackpots, Tom Cruise. In addition to his acting like a complete idiot on Oprah a couple of weeks ago, there have been some eyebrows raised over his requests to have a significant presence of his religion, Scientology, on the movie set as he works.

And Mr. Cruise’s insistence on having a Scientology tent on the set of “War of the Worlds” created a conflict at Universal, where the movie was being shot, two executives involved said. The executives, who asked not to be identified to protect industry relationships, said that Mr. Cruise, his agent Kevin Huvane and Mr. Spielberg all had to appeal personally to the president of Universal Studios, Ron Meyer, for the tent to be permitted on the studio lot, where no solicitation is allowed.

The studio required that the tent not be used for recruitment purposes, they said. A studio spokesman declined to comment.

Hmmm, I wonder what the reaction would have been from the head of the studios if some devoutly Catholic actor requested that a small chapel be constructed on the set of his latest film, along with keeping a priest on call during working hours? Or if some other actor who practiced another Christian faith demanded that Bibles be available in a tent during filming? Perhaps they might want to have a revival meeting in that tent during breaks in shooting. Do you think the head of some studio would have complied without putting up a major fight?

There’s one other particularly strange aspect to this support Cruise is getting from Spielberg on the Scientology issue.

And in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel in April, Cruise got into a heated exchange with an interviewer who called Scientology a pseudo-science after the star said he had personally “helped hundreds of people get off drugs.” Spielberg was present at the interview and found himself defending Cruise’s dedication to Scientology by comparing it to his work for his Shoah Foundation, which promotes education about the Holocaust. A DreamWorks executive called the exchange unfortunate.

Wait, let me see if I have this correct: Steven Spielberg is comparing his work in memorializing the attempted annihilation of an entire race of people by the Nazis to Cruise’s desire to push a “religion” created by a guy who wrote bad science fiction novels? Hey, I’m not going to criticize Cruise’s choice of beliefs, but even Spielberg must know that this one is a real stretch.

Well, as I always say, follow the money.