Usually, when an established international institution encounters the threat of public scandal, it rallies the troops behind crisis PR and modest, protracted silence. Not the Church of Scientology, however, which, for all its megastar clientele proselytizers, doesn't appear to have a single power-flack among its ranks. And even if it does, that authority has left Scientology's image to the hands of Tommy Davis, the 37-year-old spokesman who has spent the last week walking out of network-TV interviews, fielding resignation letters from boldface church names, and now salvaging what he can of his reputation in an interview with The Daily Beast.
This isn't necessarily the guy we'd entrust our billion-dollar religion to, but he's a guy we'd hate to see pulled any more helplessly into the pop-culture meat grinder than he has to be. For that reason, Tommy Davis, this is your Movieline Intervention.
Tommy (do you mind if I call you Tommy?), by now it's pretty clear that you've got a problem. Your profile this morning is just the latest in a multi-year run of bad press, ridiculous decisions and otherworldly public gaffes that have proven your incapacity to represent an organization of any kind -- let alone one of the world's most moneyed, fraught pseudo-religions. Furthermore, your ineptitude is just making things worse for everybody. You need to know by now that when Hollywood/Scientology beat writer Kim Masters comes calling in one of your biggest times of crisis, you don't have to pick up the phone. Let it go to voicemail. Even if she calls 10, 20 times. Because now, as you see, the alternative goes like this:
The Headleys [a married pair of ex-Scientologists] say they believe that Davis may be in somewhat over his head. With the departure of [Mike] Rinder as spokesman and other key Scientology personnel, Marc Headley says Davis has been thrust into the spotlight without necessarily having undergone sufficient training. "There's a whole series of courses you have to do," he says. "It's very unlikely that he did all that... [But] he's rich so he can afford to buy himself thousand-dollar suits and he rolls up in his 7 Series BMW--and he doesn't have any reason not to be there." (Headley says other low-paid Scientology staff members "could barely afford gas for that BMW.")
Davis says it's "crap" that the former church members are attacking him. As for Marc Headley, Davis says, "It's no mystery why he's vicious about the church and the church spokesman when he's somebody who sells stories to the media and is currently suing the church."
Whoa, Tommy, hold it right there. Wrong answer. This is where you either take the high road -- declining to comment on Mr. Headley's personal attacks -- or, if you must go on the defensive when the entire culture is waiting for you to self-destruct, you credit Scientology with helping its constituents seek their own truths and take the initiative to improve their lives as they see fit. You allow them a choice, an alternative, an option, and you wish your former members the best in the pursuits of their new faiths.
Of course you don't mean it, but say it anyway. And make it more convincing than your visit last year to CNN, a performance we both know would have cost any other corporate or institutional spokesman his job:
This is the "disconnection" commentary -- the outright lie that Scientologists don't order church members to break away from skeptical relatives -- that Paul Haggis referred to in his farewell letter to you last weekend. It's also the one that former Scientologist Jason Beghe invoked in what amounted to your previous intervention, in which he extolled your virtues while appealing to you directly:
What really saddened me, this was one of the most handsome, beautiful kids I'd seen in my life. And he's starting to look like a hardcore Scientologist. He's no longer beautiful. You see the eyes, the lying that he's doing. Anybody can see that this guy is not clean. It's clear as day. [...] I felt sorry for Tommy. If he's reading this, I want to tell him: you're losing your soul. Look in the mirror. You look like a liar.
Moreover, you look like a jackass. I thought that when you and Rinder "blew" (i.e. went underground) in 2005 after your hilarious confrontation with the BBC's John Sweeney, this would be the start of a more reticent, cutthroat and stealthy Tommy Davis -- a kind of Karl Rove to Tom Cruise's George W. Bush, a puppetmaster who would manipulate the faithful with a canny, high-voltage bit of video for private broadcast overseas. But you couldn't even do that right, and the video leaked into infamy as you scrambled once more into ineffectual damage control.
If all of that mess -- three years' worth, Tommy -- wasn't reason enough to keep you away from cameras, journalists, microphones, and anything/anyone else that would put your perspective on the record, then hopefully your overreaction to Martin Bashir's inquiry last week on Nightline will have finally done the trick:
Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. This is wrong in so many ways. First of all, when Martin Bashir comes to your door, don't answer the door. Close the curtains and hide. But if you happen to give yourself away, play it cool. And God forbid someone asks you about Xenu, the transcript should look something like this Movieline Perfect-World Reenactment™:
Nightline: Do you believe that ... a galactic emperor called Xenu ... brought his people to earth 75 million years ago and buried them in volcanoes?
Davis: OK.
Nightline: Do you believe that?
Davis: Martin, there are certain tenets of Scientology that are unique to the religion, and they've been perverted and permuted and blown out of all proportion on the Internet and elsewhere throughout culture. It's frustrating that we can't be more enlightening about specific beliefs, because I know people are curious. But like any faith, parts of mine are private. Another Scientologist may tell you something else. [Again, Tommy, you're lying here, but you're doing great! Sell it!] I appreciate you wanting to set the record straight, but something this sensitive and this individual has to remain between a man and his faith.
Nightline: Well, I ... I have the burden of my own journalistic responsibility ...
Davis: Uh-huh.
Nightline: ... that I bring to this meeting and I hope that, I've been appropriately respectful of you in my asking of the questions ...
Davis: Well, it is in violation of my religious beliefs to talk about some of them. Please understand.
Nightline: So, just for clarification ... just for clarification, do you personally believe ...
Davis: Martin, look: Scientology is a religion of peace, and Scientologists are a peaceful people, but I must ask that we discontinue this line of questioning.
You know, that kind of thing. But really, I'd rather see you just get out of the game. With all those A-listers hanging around, don't you have any PR help you can call on to be the public face of the Church of Scientology? Does Kirstie Alley maybe want to take over for a while? This isn't working out for you, the Church, or your members, and while we on the outside love a public meltdown every now and then, it's not half the fun when the victim clearly doesn't know any better. So save yourself -- step aside. It's easier than it looks, or at least easier than getting clubbed in the press for four days running. Oh, and you're welcome.
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