I thought it was interesting that BuzzFeed posted an unaltered clip from Magnolia as #2 on their list of the 16 Best Tom Cruise Parody Videos. The implication being that Paul Thomas Anderson managed to rope Cruise himself into a meta-parody, years before most of the culture would come around to seeing fervent Scientologist/couch jumper/actor as the easiest of targets.

Certainly, there’s a sort of masturbatory preening and Master of the Universe delusion to Cruise’s Magnolia character that seems to come up again in the famed Scientology video (which most of the other clips on the BuzzFeed page directly spoof), but that aspect of Cruise’s persona has only really blossomed in the past few years. Paul Thomas Anderson could very well be a genius, but if he were psychic, I don’t think he ever would have made Magnolia in the first place. The more interesting idea is not that Cruise was parodying himself in Magnolia, but that he’s become a parody of a character that he played nine years ago, which at the time was considered a huge departure from his All-American slickster hero.

In case you missed it, Paul, Kevin and I examined the evolution of Cruise’s career in this episode of FilmCouch.