“From his illegible sexuality to his leadership position within a massively powerful alien apocalypse cult, Cruise’s public and private presence reveals layers of insight into the ways that wealth, power, and desire intersect.”
I was on Nostalgia Trap with David Parsons, and we spoke about one of my favourite subjects…Tom Cruise. Not only do I love Cruise’s movies, I’ve been working for a while on a long piece about his career and effects worldwide. That piece is forthcoming, but you can hear some of what I think and David’s extremely engaged conversation with me on someone he isn’t as big a fan of but whom he was willing and able to discuss in the most probing, questioning way. It made for one of our best conversations. The episode description is below, and the link is here.
“Yasmin Nair joins us for a deep, labyrinthine conversation all about the enigma that is Tom Cruise. We survey the actor’s trajectory within the culture of late capitalism, exploring how his unique charisma embodies an almost godlike ideal that’s occupied the American imagination for more than three decades. From his illegible sexuality to his leadership position within a massively powerful alien apocalypse cult, Cruise’s public and private presence reveals layers of insight into the ways that wealth, power, and desire intersect.”