The Cannes Film Festival has become, at least since the advent of social media, as much about the fashion as it is about the films. In a year that has, by all consensus, been deemed somewhat below par, it was perhaps inevitable that the biggest story from the Croisette would be headwear, not Hollywood.
We speak, of course, about John Travolta’s beret.
In these pages last year, we looked at the slow comeback of Tom Cruise, a man once cast off from the upper ranks of stardom in a haze of Scientology freakery, and now, after a long-gestating reputation overhaul, generally seen as a saviour of populist cinema. Travolta, a fellow Hubbard acolyte, has not been so lucky — stuck in a rut of direct-to-video action slop (having picked up, seemingly, where Bruce Willis left off), Travolta’s last major cinematic release was the 2018 biopic Gotti, often considered one of the worst films ever made. His role in The People vs OJ Simpson aside, he now largely exists in the memories of three distinct generations, in three distinct modes: the practically tantric Travolta of Grease/Saturday Night Fever, the world-weary cool of Pulp Fiction, and the panto dame of Hairspray. John Travolta has not been an actor for quite some time; he is, now, somewhere between a strangely unshakeable sense of deja vu, and the butt of a joke.
Cue, then, the beret.
The beret, of which there are seemingly five versions, each a different colour, was selected by Travolta after scrolling through pictures of film directors of yore. As an actor making his directorial debut, it was a direct visual callback to Bergman and Rossellini - an actor playing, in effect, the part of director. It is also, and we make this point entirely unironically, delightful.
It’s a page straight out the Cruise playbook. In an irony poisoned age, people like sincerity. People especially like sincerity if it’s tinged with an edge of eccentricity that simply doesn’t exist anymore, and that reminds them of the type of movie stars we used to have. The image of John Travolta in a rotation of berets is genuinely charming - he looks well, he looks happy, and there’s something faintly sweet about a legend, in his dotage, LARPing as Cecil B DeMille. When so many celebrities arrive at red carpets with the distinctly uncanny sheen of Hollywood in 2026, it’s genuinely refreshing to see someone enjoy themselves on their own terms. And, crucially, it certainly seems to have reminded people exactly how much they like Travolta in the first place.
So if Tom Cruise can do it....why can’t John Travolta be the biggest movie star in the world again? As long as he keeps the beret on.
After more than a year of Trumpism, you may be forgiven for meeting his latest outrage with an eyeroll and a shrug. A man who built his reputation on outrage and transmits his own version of reality through Truth Social, the public has grown increasingly numb, and the news cycle increasingly critical.
Trump’s latest, the ‘Anti-Weaponisation Fund‘, managed to momentarily cut through, in part due to its nearly $2bn cost to the US taxpayer, and the fact that, unlike his very successful Iran peace talks, this actually exists.
The fund emerges from a $10bn lawsuit Trump brought in his personal capacity against the IRS, the agency he oversees, a trial in which all parties involved were controlled by him. To resolve it, the DOJ will make $1.776bn (yes, you read that right) available to anyone who feels harmed by weaponised federal investigations (read: allies of Trump). The sum is itself a deliberate jab, and the administration has left open the possibility of compensating the January 6th insurgents.
So why has this failed to hold the media agenda for more than five minutes? Because Trump’s brazen corruption, repugnant violations, and the persistent diminishment of democratic order have become so pervasive we’ve simply stopped being amazed. We have been groomed to take the latest shocker on the chin.
The weird and wonderful world of football comms was at the forefront this week with a dizzying array of PR dark arts, politicking and meme culture taking the beautiful game from the back page to the realms of news and gossip.
With the Trump-Infantino Legion of Doom threatening to turn the World Cup into a humanitarian disaster, a taste of the impending chaos descended on the home front after Southampton were expelled from the Championship playoffs – whose final is widely considered the most lucrative game in world football- having been found to have spied on their opponents.
Said opponents Middlesborough were responsible for a damning dossier including photographic evidence that went public and had Southampton bang to rights, making their complaints about ‘proportionality’ come across as feeble and churlish to most of the onlooking media.
Up in Scotland a similar scenario played out after jilted champions-elect Heart of Midlothian complained about Celtic fans invading the pitch after the late goal that clinched the title for them last weekend, claiming they did so before the final whistle. Celtic were defended vigorously by their curmudgeonly warhorse of an interim manager Martin O’Neill until the Scottish Football Association dealt them a comms ace card by revealing that Hearts manager Derek McInnes had told the referee himself to ‘blow the whistle’ when the final goal went in – begging the question of how much difference another restart would have made.
Arsenal were also crowned Premier League champions this week much to the annoyance of every non-Arsenal-supporting football fan on social media. Arsenal fans have long been stereotyped as deploying a sort of gauche, starry-eyed exceptionalism towards their team and now having an actual accolade (with the Champions League final – club football’s ultimate showpiece to come) there was trepidation that their eulogising of their club and its personnel would become unbearable. True to form the internet is now flooded with hysterical Arsenal heroworship. Kings of England they may be but they have a reputation management job on their hand to prove that their fans don’t include an excess of weirdos-per-capita.
Finally, England, having been major competitors in international football for nearly a decade, announced a squad hoping to finally win the world cup today. However, in circumstances that say little for organisation or harmony, the football media managed to piece the selection together yesterday through a series of leaks, including by omitted players – notably the stalwart and cranially-gifted defender Harry Maguire.
Unity and decisiveness are two factors crucial to big tournament success that can be projected and bolstered by strong communications; announcing your squad through fragments of embittered whispers might do the opposite...
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