Press
Last Update - June 21th, 2003

The Cult of Christian Bale
Liz Goodman, The Simon Magazine, Spring 2000.

From the Message Board of www.christianbale.org:

Hi. I've never posted here before but I've come over here in a state of emergency as a representative of all Star Wars geeks to plea that Christian Bale gets cast as Anakin in episodes 2 and 3!...Besides he would make the perfict older brother. I mean think about, he is soo sweat, he is semi famous, and a guy like that has got to have cute friends who might even be my age...

Christian Bale is now more famous for his fans than for his movies. Undeniably talented, he is the rare case of a child actor who has worked through adolescence and into his 20s. (Robert Sean Leonard, his co-star in Swing Kids, hasn't made a successful movie in years.) But since Bale's career-making turn in Steven Spielberg's 1987 Empire of the Sun, when he was 10, he's played mostly supporting roles in major studio movies, and, recently, starring roles in smaller indie flicks. Even a rabid 14-year-old fan calls him only "semi-famous." But type in "web heartthrob" on any search engine and you'll find that his name pops up. Then type in "rabid internet fan base." Bale again. Sure, lots of 26-year-old working actors have fan clubs. But how many 26-year-olds have fan clubs that are more than a decade old? How many have fan clubs run by a fan who also pet-sits the star's dog while the actor is on location? How many thank their fans on the web site for helping them get a part they wanted? How many, for God's sake, have teen-age fans who have baked them birthday cakes - for six years running? It's the longevity and constancy of his fans' devotion that I admire. A year or more of worship is paltry in Bale terms. There are fans who have followed his career since 1987. There are fans who report needing new copies of 1992's Disney musical Newsies because they've worn out their videotapes. These are fans whose all-time favorite movie is a wholesome little tale about a singing, dancing newspaper boy - yet, 100% of the respondents in an online poll said that they were psyched to go see Christian Bale in American Psycho. Bale has clearly moved lightyears away from the darling tyke of Empire of the Sun, but his fans are willing to go with him. Let's get honest here: How many actors with that kind of fan base can knowingly alienate their fans' tastes by playing a gay glam rock fan who jerks off over posters of his favorite idol - and still keep their love? Velvet Goldmine clearly isn't the favorite movie of the Baleheads, but only two posts out of the more than 200 that I read on the site made any negative reference to its "morals." There were more negative reviews of Portrait of a Lady. More often, his fans - even those who still wished he'd do another movie like Little Women - praised his courage in taking "difficult" roles.

But (swoony teenage girls aside) the message board is curiously...realistic. There's enough gushing to rival a geyser on the Christian Bale message board, but there's also a fair amount of perspective. As one fan, "Mandi," writes in response to a particularly saccharine posting, "we all want to meet Christian, we all want to stare into his hazel eyes, we are all enthralled with him. join the club." Fans who go overboard with the love, as did one fan named Julie who claimed that "[C]hristian loves only me, not any of you," are politely requested to show some proof or see a shrink. There's relatively little discussion of sex scenes, toned abs, or Christian B's personal life. Maybe it's the knowledge that Bale sometimes visits the message board; maybe his fans are trying to honor their perception of his "reserved" character. More than one fan suggests that a "need for personal privacy" somehow divides the "quality actor" from the "pretty boy." Only the talentless court publicity for their personal lives in the world of the Baleheads.

Seen in this light, a fan's undue curiosity about CB's personal life or a fan's overtly sexual language suggests that the fan regards Bale as little more than just another empty-headed dreamboat and that Bale's relationship with his Baleheads is just as empty as that of the Backstreet Boys with the readers of Tiger Beat. One woman named Meredith was viciously mocked for signing herself (even obviously in jest) "future wife of Christian Bale."

Or a more positive example: A female fan reports meeting C. Bale at a convention. She says that he was very nice and that he smelled good. Three people afterward ask what Bale smelled like, but the first woman never answers. It's typical of the Bale fan base that they'll report something suggestive - but not too revealing.

That's the nature of fandom, as revealed by the archives of the Baleheads. Their rare angry interchanges revolve around the question of what fandom means - what the fan gives; what the fan gets. A particularly heated fight began with this post: "people like us dont become friends with someone like [Bale],we dont date people like him, that isnt they way things go.We can post as much as we want on here but it wont change that fact. It doesn't matter if we are obsessed fans or the nicest people in the world, he has no desire to get to know any of us." Is the anonymous writer overly cynical and/or just realistic? Too cruel and/or too honest? And what about another Bale fan, Donna, who wrote this response: "the only thing that separates you from him is geography and some strange taboo that says stars are more important, or less accessable than we are. We, as fans, have every possibility of meeting up with him, and every right and reason to share with others our dreams of such meetings....You just sound so hopeless....If you like Christian Bale enough to come to this website, do you like him enough to go to an award show he's at, as some people who have met him have done? Or to go visit a set where he's working...? Nothing is impossible. Be happy, Friend." Is Donna delusional or just optimistic? Is she sugarcoating her one-sided obsession or bringing a new meaning to it? Not to make too big a deal of it, but I think Donna's sentiment - which I suspect is shared by many Baleheads - transforms the modern consumption-based model fan/star relationship (star sells personal data and sexual fantasy in the form of magazine articles and entertainment events to a prurient, faceless mass audience) into something healthier: the fan as e-mail-writing advocate, the fan as respectful dreamer, the fan as equal.

Donna's message is simple: we have a right to dream; we have a right to express their dreams; we have a right to attempt to realize their dreams. And she implies further: Dreams are unlimited; actions are finite. The anonymous writer talks about friendships and love affairs; Donna confines her suggestions to brief meetings and open communication. All she wants for her reader - and for herself, and us too - is a little hope, and the small piece of happiness found in hoping. I don't think that's much to ask from a singing newspaper boy or a glam rock teenager, do you?

I admit it. After reading 200 plus posts on the Christian Bale fan club message board, I'm a fan of his fans. I love their kooky obsession with a 1992 Disney musical about labor agitation and their half-embarrassed, half-proud defense of their fantasies of his friendship. It tickles me that they knew his dog's name and breed but nothing about his upcoming wedding. And it just about kills me that the web site marshals fans to flood writers of negative reviews with e-mail, as if the reviewers will then print retractions. As if fan devotion matters at all to the film industry.

Source - www.thesimon.com