Kelly Preston has a website?
Sarah messaged me last night asking if I’d seen the video that John Travolta made for Kelly Preston. I hadn’t and made a point of watching it before passing out thinking it’d be great to fall asleep to the sight of him throwing down a few dance moves in a pair of chaps. Instead it just made me sad.
Kelly describes the video as follows:
My husband, Johnny, made his directorial debut creating a special Mother’s Day video for me. I was so moved and love it so much that I wanted to share it with all of you. Happy Mother’s Day to anyone who mothers a child.
How much do you love that John Travolta opens on a tribute to his wife by showing what could possibly be his favourite photo of HIMSELF? This is why actors need editors, see? Actors are always #1 in their own minds. Even when they’re trying to honour someone else.
Still...I can’t hate on this effort (too much). It’s obvious that they adore each other. It’s so obvious they miss what they’ve lost. As I noted last week in my initial report on Travolta’s multiple masseur scandal, she is his best friend and he hers. The video may be corny but it’s also sweet and it’s loving and, well, I don’t doubt its sincerity, I really, really don’t...
But for the timing of it all.
I want to resist being that cynical bitch raising an eyebrow to a man’s touching appreciation for his partner. Because no matter what we know of Travolta’s no-longer secrets, he is undeniably devoted to his family, as unconventional as their arrangement might be. Is it fair then to question his motivation?
That’s a choice you make as a pop culture consumer. You support the ones you feel deserve it and have earned it and who ultimately entertain you. That’s what they owe you, if they owe you anything. What, then, does John Travolta, and by extension Kelly Preston, owe you? Would you have enjoyed his extraordinary performance in Pulp Fiction any less had he already come out? The problem here is not that you would not have but that he believes you would have, an assumption that presumably shapes the public decision-making with respect to his career. Kelly Preston chose to share a private video in a very public way. Is it not my choice then to interpret that video informed by the circumstances surrounding its release?
There’s something tragic and desperate about the way John Travolta is clinging to this fraud. Where Tom Cruise is deliberate and controlled about the management of his machine, having successfully merged his own interests and desires with those of the powerful organisation that supports him, Travolta’s approach is so fractured and vulnerable, it’s less a cry for help than an admission of defeat. Bound by duty and obligation, voluntary or otherwise, he is the portrait of a man paying the price of a sacrifice that may have been too great.
