John Travolta continues to make an ass out of himself (and to prove, incidentally, that absolutely nobody and nothing connected with the Seventies was ever cool). Travolta got in trouble last month when gay activists called for a boycott of Hairspray (due out in two weeks) because Travolta is a Scientologist and Scientology holds homo-unfriendly views. Instead of telling the activists to grow a skin and get on with their lives, Travolta insisted that there’s nothing homophobic about his chosen cult. Obi-Wan Kenobi could make people believe that “these are not the droids you’re looking for,” but the Force is not strong with John. Now he’s saying there’s nothing gay about Hairspray, a movie based on a Broadway musical based on a film written and directed by the flambuoyantly gay John Waters and starring 300-pound drag queen Divine as Edna Turnblad, the same role Travolta plays in the latest version.

Interestingly, Travolta described himself as “a complete slut” with both women and men on the set in his Edna Turnblad drag. Not that there’s anything gay about that. John’s inability to see anything homophobic about Scientology, or anything gay about Hairspray, just might have some connection with his need to see himself as not gay, but European.