[tag]Tom Cruise[/tag] makes me laugh. He also makes me glad that, no matter what, at least I’m not that crazy. But there’s still the dark side, the whole [tag]Katie Holmes[/tag] situation. I think of her and I just feel like we’re all complicit in some sort of passive crime.

Last year, [tag]Rebecca Traister[/tag] wrote a thought-provoking piece for [tag]salon.com[/tag], “Holy fem-bot, Batman! Katie Holmes is turning into a zombie in front of our eyes. Pass the popcorn.”

Jul 13, 2005 | It will come as news to no one that there’s something hinky about the Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Relationship Extravaganza. It’s a hilarious sham, so transparently ripe for satire that it — along with a couple of shark attacks and a hurricane — has managed to distract us from things like the Downing Street memo and how many people are dying in Iraq.

Hooray for Hollywood! Providing sweet relief from reality since World War I!

But it’s all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. And if the cover story in August’s W magazine is any indication, “Batman Begins” star Holmes has had both her peepers gouged from her gamine face by a sharp Tom Cruise stick. Reading the piece, it’s hard to ignore the rather awkward position we, consumers of America’s cotton-candy media, have gotten ourselves into. Holmes’ goring just officially stopped being fun or funny; suddenly we’re not simply fans or spectators, we’re accessories, standing idly by in uncomfortable paralysis as she gets her body and mind snatched on a national stage.

[read the whole piece at salon.com]

Despite this, Husband and I can’t stop quoting Tom Cruise. We’ve just cancelled all of this from our area.