Donzerly Light: Thinking Travolta

I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking it too: what is John Travolta up to these days?

Maybe you weren’t thinking that, but I was and I don’t really know why. He hasn’t had any movies come out lately. He hasn’t acted odd on any talk shows lately. He hasn’t even introduced any performers with a name he made up on the spot lately. Maybe I was thinking of John Travolta because I was recently in an airport and he’s a pilot. Or maybe it was because when I was in that airport, I saw a questionable hair system. Dealer’s choice, I guess.

For whatever reason, I’ve been thinking about John Travolta and I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a weird guy. Don’t get me wrong – being weird is perfectly fine. Weirdos make the world an interesting place. Weirdos make life better. Weirdos should be celebrated! All that being said, John Travolta is strange person and as he’s gotten older, he’s tried to hide it less and less, and I think that’s fantastic. As someone who spent a considerable amount of time in the closet, I can assure you that trying to be something that you’re not is a difficult burden to carry and it’s bad for your complexion.

It feels like John Travolta has made some considerable strides in coming out of the weirdo closet, but I think maybe he’s a good example of how it’s possible to be in more than one closet at the same time, like some kind of magical coat hanger. I don’t know if John Travolta is non-straight and I don’t need to know. I just want him to enjoy his life as much as possible without hurting anybody else. I think the Scientology stuff that he’s involved in is hurting some folks, but the maybe not straight thing is his own internet browser history to clear.

I referenced this before, but do you remember at the Academy Awards in 2014 when he was introducing Idina Menzel, who was there to sing, “Let It Go,” from Frozen, and instead of saying her actual name, which surely must have been on the teleprompter that he was reading, he introduced her as, “…the wickedly talented Adele Dezeem.” I remember seeing that and wondering if he knew how to read. And not like in the way drag queens read each other, but in the way that they teach you in kindergarten. Is it possible that he only knows some of the sounds letters make and has been guessing at the rest for all these years? Maybe his eyes stopped working for a moment. Maybe the weird men’s neckpiece that he was wearing instead of a bow tie was on too tight (actually – he wore that the following year when he and Menzel presented together). Or maybe someone used the wrong wig glue and he was being sabotaged by his own hair system. Whatever it was, Idina Menzel, god bless her, came out and sang that song like that absolutely bonkers introduction had never happened.

To be clear, I don’t have any concrete proof that John Travolta wore a hair piece for years, but I do have eyes and I can see imported human hair just as well as the next person. But I don’t think the imported human hair makes him weird. People use hair enhancement pieces all the time! I do have some questions about his glam team that they think those hair systems they put him in were convincing. I’d like a 10-minute Zoom call with those people at their earliest convenience.

Not only is John Travolta a mostly lovable weirdo, he’s also an actor who is sometimes a movie star, depending on what part of the last 40 years that you’re thinking about. He’s had more career highs and lows than just about anyone you can think of and I’ve got a list of my favorite Travolta movies/strangest Travolta choices below. Let’s break out that freak flag and treat it like the car at the end of Grease: flying high in the sky!

• Battlefield Earth (2000) – This movie was partly based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. I don’t know what the “L” stands for. Maybe Larry? But why would you hide the “Larry” and go with “Ron” instead? That feels like a real lateral move if you ask me. The Larrys and Rons of the world seem interchangeable in most cases. I believe we’d all be in the same situation if Kurt Russell had starred in Captain Larry instead of starring in Captain Ron, but I digress. Battlefield Earth was a movie about space and there was some fighting and Travolta invested some of his own money in the movie and people really didn’t like it. He played someone named “Terl” who was a Psychlo and that begs the question: Huh? They referred to humans as “manimals” in the movie. I mean, that’s not only weird, it’s gross too.

  
  

• Carrie (1976) – John Travolta played Billy in the first film adaptation of the Stephen King novel. He was one of the bullies, but he mostly just did what his asshole girlfriend told him to do. But even as a teen in the 70s, you’ve still got to take responsibility for your actions. Not to ruin the movie for you, but he did not survive. He wasn’t even one of the kids who Carrie took out during the prom. She went and found him and his asshole girlfriend after she burned down the prom! Carrie doesn’t like loose ends, which I bet would have made a devoted Scientologist.

  
  

• Moment by Moment (1978) – Get ready, because this is going to blow your mind. Moment by Moment is a movie starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin. In the film, Lily Tomlin plays Trisha, a Beverly Hills socialite who is lonely because her husband left her. He cheated on her a bunch before he left her, but she’s still lonely. I wished she could have heard, “It’s Not Right, But It’s OK,” by Whitney Houston. She would have felt very seen. Anyhow, John Travolta plays someone named “Strip” who is also a drifter and he becomes infatuated with Trisha and there is a scene in a hot tub and I’ve never seen less sexual chemistry between two people in my life. Salt and pepper shakers flirt more convincingly than these two! Anyway, it was written and directed by Lily Tomlin’s longtime partner, Jane Wagner, which really moves the WTF factor up a couple more notches.

  
  

• Two of a Kind (1983) – I’m not talking about the short-lived Olsen twins TV show. A few years after Grease, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John reunited for this movie and it makes you wonder if Rizzo was actually the reason that people liked Grease. In Two of a Kind, Olivia Newton-John is a bank teller and John Travolta is an inventor and God has decided that he’s had it with humankind and is going to destroy the Earth and it’s up to a group of angels to find two good souls to convince God the world is worth saving. Based on this movie alone, I would argue that our Lord and savior may have been right.

  
  

• Face/Off (1997) – Do you remember those body swap movies from the late 80s? Vice Versa with Judge Rienhold and Fred Savage, and Like Father, Like Son with Dudley Moore and the morally skanky Kirk Cameron. This movie is kind of like those movies, but with more scenery chewing and all traces of enjoyment removed. In Face/Off, Nicolas Cage is a criminal and he’s planted a bomb that is going to blow up all of Los Angeles. To paraphrase Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (as one does), “That’s one huge bomb!” John Travolta is an FBI agent that’s trying to find the bomb, but Nic Cage won’t tell him where it is. So, naturally, John Travolta’s FBI agent has someone surgically replace his face with Nic Cage’s face so he can go ask some of Nic Cage’s associates where the bomb is. In the meantime, they had to put John Travolta’s face somewhere, so they put it on Nic Cage and then he escaped custody and he’s out doing whatever he can get away with while wearing John Travolta’s face. This was a hit film and that fact is maybe the weirdest thing John Travolta has ever been associated with.

Takeaway Quote of the Week

“You can’t stop my happiness, ‘cause I like the way I am. And you just can’t stop my knife and fork when I see a Christmas ham.”

 -John Travolta as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, known champion of weirdos and ham

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Heath Smith is co-host of Fuzzy Memories, the podcast that celebrates the good, the rad and the fugly of the 80s and 90s. He was once asked by a cast member of MTV’s Road Rules if he was from Puerto Rico. In his free time, he enjoys Mariah Carey a normal and healthy amount. For a good time, follow him on Instagram.

Why "Donzerly Light"? Heath says: In elementary school, I thought "donzerly light" was part of the lyrics of the national anthem. I didn't realize that the actual words were "dawn's early light." I just assumed "donzerly" was an old-timey word that meant "majestic" or something like that. My middle school social studies teacher, who thought I was trying to make a joke with “donzerly,” would be 100% irritated by naming my column this way, and that makes it even better.