The soundness of this particular celebrity package is certainly thrown into question with the publication of the Holmes interview, in which the subject cannot fully speak for herself. Rodriguez -- a woman who is not Holmes' publicist and claims not to work for her but to be her "best friend" even though at the time of the interview she'd only known her for six weeks -- coaches the actress and answers questions for her.

When Haskell asks Holmes what she makes of the dubious reaction to her relationship, Rodriguez intercedes, "We don't read that stuff because it's just rude." Rodriguez also says that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie should be as public in their affection as Holmes and Cruise. "Brad and Angelina -- that's just a shame for them, right Katie?" asks Rodriguez. "Yeah, I mean, I'm just so happy," is Holmes' reply. Haskell does not mention whether there's an icy mist emanating from Holmes' clearly frozen brain.

No one could blame W for running the piece; in fact, the magazine's willingness to lay bare what happened in the interview, instead of prettying it up to stay on the good side of Camp Cruise, is commendable.

But it leaves readers in a moral gray area. We work up a lather about Elizabeth Smart or Shasta Groene or any of the other young white women whose abductions we fetishize and fret over. But whether Holmes has willingly entered into a business partnership that forces her to mask her cognitive abilities or whether she's been hoodwinked into believing what she's burbling, it's happening in plain sight, in front of all of us, and we only know how to process it as an awkward form of entertainment.

Haskell interviewed Holmes three days before the announcement of what he calls her conversion to Scientology, though the actress confessed to him that she'd already begun "auditing" -- receiving spiritual counseling from L. Ron Hubbard's church. Thanks to Scientology, Holmes tells Haskell, she is "learning" to celebrate her "own spirit" and her "own being."

But what about her "own career," which is in free fall, now that she's giving up plum lead roles, like that of Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick in "Factory Girl," reportedly because Sedgwick took drugs that Scientologists frown upon? When asked about Cruise's influence over her "Factory Girl" choice, Holmes tells Haskell, "Tom's so supportive and he's such an inspiration."

Holmes tells Haskell that people from her hometown in Ohio who are worried about her "aren't my friends." Then, when an obviously timed diamond necklace arrives from Cruise, she does an ecstatic split (in reference to her beloved's Oprah couch-jump) and announces once again that she's in love. It's the kind of brainwashed confusion -- that those who express concern are not your friends, but those who send gifts in the middle of press ops love you -- that is best explored by a therapist, within a family and with friends. Readers can't do anything to help her. So what are we supposed to feel when we read about it?

I don't know. But it may be time to reconsider the ways we're ingesting our culture. We are so used to seeing "real people" do surreal and insane things -- eating bugs and getting dropped off on dangerous islands and making and breaking engagements like they're first dates -- that nothing makes a dent anymore.

But sometimes people need real help -- like in life, not on television. Katie Holmes may be one of those people. And while my concern for her does not exceed my concern for all the anonymous women who are manipulated or mistreated by organizations or individuals who seek to profit from their mental, emotional or physical weaknesses, it's disquieting to see it unfold on a national stage. Of course there are greater tragedies. People die in unnecessary wars and on subways. But the Holmes story is supposed to fall into the category of things that distract us from all that. That's how it's being fed to us; that's how we're consuming it. What are we supposed to do when our fluff becomes deeply troubling, but remains fluff?

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