Bale Out’ provides example of tantrum-tampering

Having played Batman, the title character in American Psycho and humanity’s savior John Connor in the upcoming Terminator: Salvation, Christian Bale has an intense screen presence. But it’s being upstaged by his off-screen behavior, including an arrest last summer as well as a recent tantrum on the set of Terminator: Salvation. People with anger-management issues should beware: not only can these tirades get recorded and leaked to the internet, some even get made into NSFW dance remixes:

“Tantrum-tampering” is turning into a unique new medium. Just now I saw Bale’s tirade edited to provide the male dialogue in this mash-up trailer for He’s Just Not That Into You. The Bill O’Reilly remix probably sets the bar for the form.

In this particular case, I have a little sympathy for Bale, since he lost his cool during the middle of shooting a big scene. It seems like a lot to ask an actor to get all emotional and raw one minute, then switch it off once the camera’s off. On Ain’t It Cool News, Harry Knowles posted a defense of Bale, and remarks that he knows truth behind outburst because,

“I know this because I happen to be somewhere where someone that was there that day and for the shoot is.”

(Parse that sentence.) Nevertheless, tantrum-tampering strikes me as an appropriate response, whether the bad-behaving person involved is an A-list movie sar or just a temperamental co-worker. Let’s say, for instance, that Wyatt Williams recorded me having a 10-minute hissyfit after bringing me Orange Lacroix Water instead of my preferred Pamplemousse Lacroix Water, like I’ve told him a million times. Having my words laid down over a track of, say, “I Like To Move It, Move It” and spread all over cyberspace seems like a punishment that fits the crime.