Why Katie Holmes Should Be Deemed the Most Influential Person of 2006

If last year seemed like a crazy year for Katie Holmes, starring in Batman Begins, meeting and falling in love with Tom Cruise, having a crazy media frenzied courtship and becoming pregnant with his baby; then this year must have seemed chimerical!

Katie Holmes, who grew up as the girl everyone was rooting for on Dawson's Creek, has become a virtual stranger to her public. She started off the new year pregnant, but not married, with Tom Cruises child and had what has to be the most overly talked about pregnancy and birth ever. There was so much buzz over the nature of their relationship; the fact that Tom Cruise seemed to control every aspect of Katie's life, the way all of her old friends seemed to be out of the picture and her new (Scientology friendly) friends were the only ones she had contact with anymore. The whole issue of Tom not wanting anyone to call her Katie anymore, because she is going to be a mother and therefor should be called Kate (yeah whatever, we have always known her as Katie and will always call her Katie). The way it seemed like she was never allowed to speak in public unless he was around. Katie Holmes became a mystery to the world. Then, once she had her beautiful baby, Suri, the world speculated over the birth (was it silent?) and eventually over whether there was even a baby Suri or not. If all of that media attention seemed like it should have been enough to last Katie Holmes all year, she and her soon to by hubby, whetted the nations appetite once again by planning and executing an internationally talked about wedding in a Roman Castle this fall. She was followed around from fashion shows to shopping excursions with her every move being questioned and speculated upon. She was watched at her soon to be step-children's soccer games and when she was out having lunch with Brooke Shields. Then, as the day of her wedding approached, her every move on the way to the alter was documented.
We have watched her become a mother, have watched her get married, have questioned her ability to think and talk for her self and have wondered if she is somehow being brainwashed with this whole Scientology business and is slowly losing everyone who has been close to her in her life, pre-Tom Cruise. Is she even the same Katie Holmes that the public was rooting for only a few years ago?

With this such attention, speculation and fascination, Katie Holmes has to be the Most Influential Person of 2006. And whether you like the spectacle that is TomKat or not, Katie Holmes still has the sweet innocence of "Little Joey Potter", that makes us root for her.