First it was nutty Jenna Elfman publicly taking up for embattled friends Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, and now it's Will Smith's squirrely little midget wife Jada Pinkett Smith. In an interview with People magazine, Jada, who is not officially a Scientologist as far as I know, says the public's perception of Tom and Katie's marriage is dead wrong, that Katie is not the shrinking violet everyone assumes her to be, and that Tom has by no means shoved Scientology down his Catholic wife's throat.
Pull the other one Jada!
All right, I'll give Jada her chance. Here's what she had to say about the real Katie - whom she describes as a tigress - and the metamorphosis she underwent after becoming Tom's wife:
I think everybody has this image: Poor little Kate, she doesn't have the strength to take care of herself. People don't know that behind all that grace is a tiger. I've witnessed it! I've had conversations with Kate personally where the tigress comes out of her, that fight.
There was one incident when I turned to Will – we were in their dining room, just the four of us, we were sitting and talking – Kate made a comment, and that was the moment I was like, "You know what? I can ride with her." She made it very clear she wasn't standing for people messing with her family. She is extremely protective. But at the same time she's so graceful.
I can see how people wouldn't see this, but when you look at Kate now [compared to] when she first met Tom, she's more confident and more knowing who she is than ever before. You can see it in her pictures. She looks more beautiful and more confident and more assured. I've watched that metamorphosis – how Kate has blossomed into this woman. Because her life changed very quickly, she moved from one person into another.
First of all Jada, I don't know if anyone ever suggested that Katie was some kind of pitiful little piece of jello who didn't know how to take care of herself. I always thought of Katie as just being a tad naive - not some kind of pathetic wretch but, you know, young and not exactly MENSA material. And a guy like Tom Cruise with all his money and his fame and power, and the selling job he knows how to do after years of working in Hollywood - how could a girl in Katie's position really deal with that? Tom comes on stronger than almost anyone. He obviously decided that Katie would make an ideal wife, because she was beautiful and young and above all pliant. Not empty - just suggestible. And she probably got overwhelmed by him. Swept away. She really seemed kind of bewildered there at first. Maybe she's not anymore, but still, do you really think Tom, a guy who subscribes to a religion that is demonstrably sexist, is actually going to allow any wife of his that much freedom if he can help it?
But here's what Jada says about the idea of Katie as a "prisoner":
It burns my soul – I see her in the house with Tom; he doesn't have that on her! It kills me. "Tom's this monster and he's got her chained up in the basement and he's forcing Scientology down her throat" – it's bullshit. Let me tell you: Kate ain't no little wimpy kitty cat. It's not that ballgame. For real.
I see how protective she is over her family and her husband. She very much carries the idea that people better not [mess] with my family. She gets fired up. When she gets to that mode, it makes me step back. I was like, "Okay!" And Tom looks at me and goes, "See? See? Did you see that?" And I go, "Yeah, I saw that – hell yeah." It amazes me.
She's got a quiet thunder. When she walks into a room, or you see her in a magazine – it's a thunder that people are attracted to. It's quiet and it's very subtle, but it's extremely powerful. What's great about Kate is that she doesn't wear who she is on her sleeve, and that makes people so interested in her. That in itself is quite a power, and she knows it. Kate is smart, let me just put it like that.
It burns Jada's soul! Katie has a quiet thunder! Katie ain't no wimpy little kitty cat! Who the fuck talks like that?!
Honestly, Jada - you have a lot of exchanges with people that go: "Okay!" And Tom looks at me and goes, "See? See? Did you see that?" And I go, "Yeah, I saw that – hell yeah." What, were you observing the intricate mating dance of the whooping crane?
I think it's interesting that Jada consistently fails to give any specific examples of Katie standing up to Tom, or Katie showing this quiet thunder tigress don't-fuck-with-her thing. All she can do is throw out these nebulous remarks about "the one time this happened" or "this other time when I was over at Tom and Katie's for a barbecue." Jeez Jada, if you're going to make up some shit, do you think you could at least do a good job of it?
I weary of Jada and her Oprah-like "you go girl" ejaculations. But I must run this last bit of her bullshit, where she attempts the truly absurd feat of convincing us that not only is Katie not a wimp, but she actually runs the household:
Tom don't run nothin' in that house! It is Katie's house. It's her world! The devotion that Tom has to his wife, and the places he'll go to make her happy – spiritually, where he will go as a man for his woman.
He's taking time off to just be with [Katie] on her routine. [Holmes is filming Mad Money in Louisiana.] It's nice when our husbands take the time to come with us to work. I saw him the other day, he had Suri by himself. He had Suri for like four days. By himself. He's a family guy as well as this larger-than-life individual. He knows, more than anything, that for him to be happy, he's got to have a happy home and a happy family.
Oh Jada, you are hilarious. "He's taking time off to just be with [Katie] on her routine." Right. He's down there in Louisiana while she's filming that movie because he wants to "be there for her." It has nothing to do with him being a jealous, controlling nut-bag. And I love that other line: "It's nice when our husbands take the time to come with us to work." Really Jada? And I wonder, if Katie were say a waitress, would it be nice for Tom to hang around the restaurant where she was working? Would people think he was being supportive or smothering and insane? The truth, Jada, is that Tom's afraid if he takes his eye off Katie too long, she'll start to stray (as she may already be doing). And why is he afraid of this? Because Katie isn't a shrinking violet; because she does have a will of her own, and Tom knows this. And that's why he has to exert his "manly authority," which springs from insecurity and probably latent homosexuality.
No Jada - nobody buys your little "Katie really wears the pants" deal - everyone knows that Tom wears the pants. Any religion that features, right in the wedding vows, such nonsense as the man promising to give the woman a pot and a comb and a cat, and the woman promising to understand if her man should need to stray - that religion was created by a misogynist for misogynists, and no man who believes that stuff is going to marry somebody and then not be in charge. Seriously Jada - the next time you set out to defend your pals Tom and Katie, try a little less hard, okay? I mean, I swear, I thought that next you were going to insist it was actually Katie who had the penis, and Tom who carried the baby in his womb. Actually, that I might believe...
(source)
(thanks to Crabbie-fan Felicia Singh for the tip)
