The 'Nice' Approach Isn't Working. Cruise Got It Right

2 columnists weigh in on the star's leaked COVID rant
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 17, 2020 12:27 PM CST
Tom Cruise Got It Exactly Right
Actor Tom Cruise wears a face mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as he greets fans during a break from shooting Mission Impossible 7, along Rome's Fori Imperiali avenue, on Oct. 13.   (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file)

Some social media users viewed Tom Cruise's leaked rant from the set of Mission: Impossible 7, in which he hurls profanities at masked crew members for violating COVID safety measures, as "abusive, yet another instance of an entitled man screaming at people not in a position to scream back," writes Mary McNamara in the Los Angeles Times. But as McNamara sees it, the 3.5-minute meltdown could be life-saving. Cruise expressed "what many of us are thinking, in one form or another, all the time," she writes. And "after nearly a year of death and destruction, how is one supposed to react to those people who still refuse" to follow guidelines, "potentially endangering lives, livelihoods, the US economy and the world as we know it," she asks. "Wouldn't it be nice if you could just hit play on your phone and have Tom Cruise do it for you?"

Americans were warned that multi-household Thanksgiving gatherings "would mean increased deaths by Christmas, and here we are, regularly hitting 3,000 deaths a day," McNamara writes. "Clearly the nicer, kinder, more reasonable tone of medical experts, public officials and other celebrities calling on citizens to do their bit to stem the pandemic's tide is not working," she adds. "So maybe it's time" we move "in favor of the 'if I see it again you are gone, motherf-----' approach." At Slate, Shannon Palus wonders if Cruise wasn't more concerned with his movie being shut down than the spread of coronavirus. But like others, "I am very exhausted of keeping my distance from people whom I do not wish to keep my distance from," she writes. And "it helps to hear rage on full display, instead of neatly tucked away, where so many of us are keeping it." (More coronavirus stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X