Tom Cruise - By Brian Herron

Tom Cruise has been known to be a male sex symbol as well as a typical protagonist action star that saves the day at the end of a movie. One of his earliest movies, Risky Business, defined him as a male sex symbol because his characters sexual relations with Lana, who is a prostitute in the movie. Cruise portrayed this character so well that he was cast in other movies that needed a male character that can easily get the girl.
Three years later came along Top Gun, which not only shows Cruise as a playboy but also as an action star that can attract an audience expecting to be entertained by special effects. To me, this is why Top Gun was so successful because of Cruise’s ability to play two characters at once. This in turn led to his casting in Days of Thunder in which his character is a NASCAR driver who is focused on his sport but at the same time is in love with the doctor involved in his race team.
This was a time in society; I feel like when movies were being made that couples could go see that they would both enjoy. They weren’t just chick flicks or flat out action movies; they were action-romantic movies. Tom Cruise’s good looks, charm, and heroic type of acting proved to be a big part of this mixed genre. Today, these action-romantic movies aren’t really around any more. I think they after the 80’s decade romance and action started to split. This is also proved in Tom Cruise’s career where he is seen in roles that are either defined by romance, such as in Vanilla Sky, or in action, such as Mission Impossible and War of the Worlds.