John Travolta’s Beret Obsession Takes Centre Stage at Cannes
Every morning this week, I have awoken to a new image of John Travolta wearing a beret. The Grease icon and Scientology enthusiast has made a triumphant return to the Cannes Film Festival alongside his daughter Ella Bleu, premiering his directorial debut — Propeller One-Way Night Coach, an autobiographical aviation film based on his own 1997 children’s novella.
The book boasts a 2.86 star rating on Goodreads and is labelled as “a fable for all ages”. The film itself? The Telegraph declared it was like “watching a toddler walk into a lamp post”. So that’s another welp.
The movie does not appear to be a triumph. I wouldn’t know, I have not seen it and am famously not a Cannes juror. But I can tell you about the real story here.
With the modern aplomb of Emily In Paris, John Travolta appeared at the festival with a jaunty new look that oozes mystique and French joie de vivre.
No less than five times he has been spotted in a beret.
Thrice now I have read headlines claiming the actor is UNRECOGNISABLE. He’s not, he’s just wearing a hat and has a new facial hair situation. It’s become an international talking point with interviewers interrogating his bold new fashion debut and Google Search queries for ‘John Travolta Beret’ seeing a 100% spike to far outrank the popular ‘did John Travolta die’ search term. Which I think is good news.
Everyone’s talking about it. Image: Supplied.
The berets are so captivating that no one is even talking about his movie receiving a 56 per cent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. Such is their power.
And trust, I have been monitoring this situation closely.
For a moment, I thought it was just me and this one guy on Twitter keeping up-to-the-minute on this look. But it turns out, the whole world cares.
Why is he wearing them? Did he get a bulk-buy discount? And what can we as a society learn from this situation? This and other such questions to be answered now.
Me when I have that s*** on. Image: Getty.
In an interview with CNN after the fourth beret had hit the timeline, Johnny T elaborated on the inspiration behind his new look.
“I’ve been around for over 50 years doing movies, but I can’t tell when I look back, the difference between the events,” he said. “I said ‘I’m a director this time’ — you’re an actor, play the part of a director. So I looked up pictures — 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s — and the old school directors wore berets and the glasses and I thought ‘that’s what I’m doing’.
“I’m gonna do an homage to being a director. And then when I look back, I’ll know that was Cannes when I won the Palme d’Or.”
Was it bold of him to assume his film could win the Cannes Film Festival’s highest prize, awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film? No! Because he was actually awarded an honorary Palme d’Or — which is basically like a lifetime achievement award.
And now, every time he looks at the photos he will be like “oh, yes, that’s when I was a director and I can tell because of my slanted little hat.”
Me when I’m channelling my favourite directors. Image: Getty.
The actor has simply taken method dressing to a new level. Like he saw Zendaya doing Dune: Part II press tour in her metallic little robot suit and had a lightbulb moment. It’s the Hollywood male equivalent to me buying a new travel-size Glossier perfume for my recent trip to Ireland so I could have a #scentmemory of the vacation.
Did he go a bit hard on the new look, was he overcome with a rampant fashion fever? Maybe! But whomst among us has not been excited to show off a fashion purchase in the workplace, strutting the aisles of the office in a new Damson Madder trench coat buttoned to the TOP.
His office is just a Hollywood press tour. And that is quite literally showbusiness, baby.
Feature Image: Getty.
