On the set of his latest movie, “Terminator 4,” actor Christian Bale unleashed what has come to be known as a “Bale Out:” an f-bomb laden, profanity laced, 4-minute tirade hurled at the director of photography. According to the report, Bale was in the middle of filming one of the most intense scenes of the movie when the director of photography walked across the set, interrupting him. Instead of replying with civility, Bale gave the man an intense tongue-lashing.
Reflecting upon this incident, I recognized that we, as consumer America, have a problem. The problem is that we compartmentalize our buying morality with our human morality. Originally, how qualified a person was at a specific skill was not the sole judge of competency. If a skilled science teacher was a bad person morally, society recognized that he had no right to teach a science class. Currently, however, we have no discrimination whatsoever. If we disagree with Christian Bale’s puerile tirade, we must show it. The only way to show a celebrity what we are thinking (ruling out a personal call from Mr. Bale) is to not support his actions financially.
The rebuttal to my argument is often expressed in compartmentalized terms. People say to me “well just because we support his movie doesn’t mean we support his personal actions.” But I disagree. Going to see an actor’s movie or buying and artist’s CD is supporting their personal beliefs. Let us draw an illustration that should be helpful in discussing this. Suppose a businessman is unethical. His personal ethics, mainly his belief that it’s fine to cheat a customer, make him an unethical person. However, when it comes to being a salesman, he’s the best there is. Would anyone buy from him? Of course not. The reason is because his lack of personal morality influences his business transactions, thereby having an effect on you. The Christian Bale case is similar in that he (Bale) has low personal ethics. In his book, it is not a bad thing to chew out another individual just because they messed up. Now Christian Bale is a salesman as well; he sells his movies to the public. Should we buy from him? My hunch is that most people would say “yes.” The reason they would say this, is because Christian Bale’s lack of ethical behavior doesn’t influence them personally. Yet by this logic, one ought to only react to things that affect them personally, a statement that I’m sure most Christians will not agree with. Why, everyday people give to charities across the world that helps underprivileged people. The plight of the impoverished doesn’t affect the money donors but they give anyways.
Along a similar vein, I think it is imperative that we as Christian consumers take more of a stand with our personal buying behavior. If a celebrity is a supporter of something we don’t believe in, be it abortion or stem cell research, we must act by speaking with our wallets. This implies that first, we must be informed as to what beliefs are held by the artists we support. This also implies that secondly we must always stand by our moral convictions. Does this mean that if you’re in strong opposition to Greenpeace then you shouldn’t buy Coldplay’s CD’s because of their support of Greenpeace? Yes, it does. We must sacrifice slight personal gratification in order that we might remain strong in our morals and active in our beliefs.
