Ever since I saw “Mission Impossible 3″ and thought it was pretty damn good I’ve had a theory about actors sabotaging their own careers. It’s called “The Tom Cruise Effect”.

You see, “MI:3″ was pretty damn good, yet it didn’t make any money. And the reason it didn’t make any money was because it starred Tom Cruise. That’s why Paramount canned his ass shortly after the movie’s release.

Why don’t people go to see movies starring Tom Cruise? You guessed it: Because Tom Cruise is a fucking whackjob.

This is pretty much the three-part thought cycle everyone I know has when they hear the name Tom Cruise:

1) They think: Tom Cruise is the messiah of Scientology.

2) They think: I don’t want a Scientologist pouring my coffee at Starbucks, let alone starring in the movies I go see.

And,

3) Then they spend five seconds silently mourning Maverick from “Top Gun”.

But I’m sure informing you of your feelings on Tom Cruise is in no way earth-shattering. You already know you think Tom Cruise sucks.

What is pretty interesting is applying the principles of “The Tom Cruise Effect” (or TCE) to the careers of other famous actors. Things vary case by case, of course, but essentially suffering from TCE means that someone who once did solid work inflicted irreparable damage on their own career by publicly acting like a dipshit on a regular basis.

The end result is usually either a public boycott of that actor’s films OR that actor being blackballed by the industry. Here are some examples as well as some different variations of TCE:

Self-Inflicted Victims of TCE

Guys who made good movies but have fallen victim to their own public personas.

Tom Cruise. The namesake. Preaches Scientology. Jumps on couches. Came this close to scissor kicking Matt Lauer. Grows shorter by the second. May or may not have an elaborate plan to incinerate every pharmacy in the United States. Could star in a movie so good that it makes “The Departed” look like “Johnny Mnemonic” and no one would go see it.

Mel Gibson. No denying “Braveheart”, “Mad Max”, “Payback”, and most of the “Lethal Weapons” are bad ass, but making a movie about the Crucifixion and then blaming your DUI on the Jews all in the same year is a sure fire way to get yourself blackballed when 50% of your industry ends their name with “stein”. “Apocalypto” was a solid flick, but it never stood a chance. Preaching strict Catholicism while at the same time regularly getting smashed with Costa Rican prostitutes doesn’t help either.

Ben Affleck. Flaunting a relationship with Jennifer Lopez, willingly posing for gossip rags, and starring in “Jenny on the Block” videos should railroad anyone’s career. Affleck brought it on himself.

Sean Penn. Complete and utter uncompromising dipshit. Vacations in Iran. Takes contrarian political stances like you’d take a contrarian stance on your buddy being a Yankees’ fan. Presently works under a studio contract that allows him to exclusively make suicide-inducing films.

The Travolta Category

Guys who would fall in the above category except all their movies are shit.

John Travolta is more than enough of a weirdo (devout Scientologist, refuses to recognize his son’s autism, kisses dudes, etc.) to be a sell-inflicted victim of “TCE” except his movies suck too much to begin with for his public persona to make a difference.

If you saw “Hairspray”, feel free to redirect here.

How Travolta pulled off “Pulp Fiction” and “Get Shorty” in the mid-nineties is the biggest fucking mystery of the decade.

The WTF Category

Guys who have inexplicably avoided falling victim.

Nick Cage. Nick Cage is married to an 18 year-old Asian waitress, replaced his sideburns with bald patches, (probably) attempts to fight crime at night, and has almost certainly scheduled himself to be cryogenically frozen at death, yet audiences love him. Go figure.

Alec Baldwin. Baldwin is a bi-polar rageaholic. There’s no way around it. I’d be willing to guess he’s smacked around his fair share of women in his day. But hey, as long as he keeps the money one-liners coming I’m sure all those chicks were asking for it.

The Dangerously Close Category

Guys walking on thin ice.

Will Smith. Sure, we all like him, and his movie just made a gazillion dollars on opening weekend, but the Fresh Prince is logging in a little too much time with Tom Cruise himself these days. It may not be long before Big Willy starts preaching that insulin shots and heart difibrillators are evil.

Jake Gyllenhaal. Outside of “Brokeback”, the only thing I have to say about this dude is that he just seems to get gayer and gayer by the second (actually, those are kind of the same things). If that’s the case, not a big deal, but I’m guessing it might have a slight affect on the box office performance of The Joe Namath Story.

Previous “Relevant Irrelevance”:

• Prejudging the Holiday Movie Lineup
• An Open Invitation to Fight Justin Timberlake
• The “Saving Private Ryan” Effect
• Top 5 Crappy Superhero Movies…That Made Money

“Relevant Irrelevance” is Maske’s column dedicated to passing judgment and/or formulating theories on just about anything trivial.

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