Deprogramming Your VCR: Famous Scient*l*gists and Their Secret Cries for Help

If you were bound by blackmail to represent an insane cult for the duration of your natural life, but you had regular access to audiences numbering in the millions, you’d sneak out a few hints about your desperate situation, just like these folks.

1. Beck-”Loser”, in which random lines of gibberish brainwash the listener in between admissions that the author is a “L.O.S.E.R.,” which clearly stands for “Latched Onto Scient*l*gy Early and Retardedly.”

Center: Scientology.  Left: L.O.S.E.R.

2. Beck-”Devil’s Haircut”, in which the line “I’ve got a devil’s haircut/in my mind” describes perfectly the state of having been brainwashed. Meanwhile, the verse

Something’s wrong ’cause my mind is fading
And everywhere I look
There’s a dead end waiting
Temperature’s dropping at the rotten oasis
Stealing kisses from the leprous faces

describes perfectly the state of being stuck in a massive, phony organization which thanks to its unrivaled focus on the collection and use of blackmail material and ninja lawyers is able to make any escape “a dead end waiting.”

3. John Travolta-Boy in the Plastic Bubble, in which John plays a young man isolated from reality by an airtight and wholly artificial construct any escape from which could kill him.

4. John Travolta-Phenomenon, in which John plays a man who (like many Scient*l*gists) thinks he can use magical mind powers to charm people, invent stuff, solve problems, and move objects telekinetically, but whose “magical powers” turn out to be a brain tumor that kills him.

5. John Travolta-Battlefield Earth, in which John and pretty much everyone else involved purport to sell a certain organization’s founder’s pulp fiction to the general public as something more than goofy gibberish, but whose effort level (read: abysmally low) in bringing said fiction to film betrays them all as reluctant slaves.

6. Jason Lee-Alvin & the Chipmunks, in which Jason plays a man who listens to, and builds his life around, and tries to expose to millions, what are clearly just some creepy audio recordings of gibberish and schlocky illustrations.

7. Jenna Elfman-Krippendorf’s Tribe, in which Jenna’s character feigns being the civilized person among savages when in actuality the savages are all civilized and she’s spouting random gibberish in an attempt to help her superiors commit fraud.

8. Kelly Preston-Cat in the Hat, in which Kelly plays the oblivious head of a household invaded by a destructive entity spouting lewd gibberish that threatens to rot her kids’ minds.

11. Giovanni Ribisi-Boiler Room, in which Giovanni plays a kid who gets involved in a doomed Ponzi scheme where an inner circle of con artists vigorously proselytizes a worthless stock by spouting endless gibberish about it until suckers buy into it and inflate its value enough to profit the dickens out of said inner circle.

12. Juliette Lewis-Kalifornia, in which Juliette plays a woman oblivious to the fact that she’s surrounded by crazy people, and even more oblivious to the fact that she herself is a persona played by a crazy woman.

13. Tom Cruise-Magnolia, in which Tom plays a ridiculously successful megastar whose insane confidence in a controversial philosophy hides a strained and repressed psyche on the verge of collapse.

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