An interesting article on Mashable yesterday suggested that this might be a deliberately placed viral to drum-up excitement for the upcoming terminator movie (which we’re all pretty excited about anyway non?). The argument is fairly sound, Bale is a superb actor so could pull it off and the use of viral “real” videos being used to hype a product has been used before so it isn’t too great of a leap to imagine that this could be a deliberately placed/released advert.
There are some interesting points raised in the comments about whether this a real rant or not and if it is, has it been deliberately released now? Is Hollywood stupid, evil or both etc etc. I’m pretty on the fence about it. On one hand I hope it is real because I would hate to think that Bale is such a twat that he has jeopardized his reputation on a publicity stunt (both his reputation for being a professional on set and being a real guy, not willing to play any media game, new media or not). On the other hand if it is a fake that means that at least he isn’t a verbal abuse kind of twat (which his London arrest would seem to contest anyway).
I suppose being skeptical on the validity of this is to be expected given the spate of pass-around videos that have been shown to be false like the hair freak-out and the office rage one. I don’t likes ‘em. I think that whatever they are ultimately pushing it is totally lost or brings about bad feelings about that product. I believe that out of those people who receive or watch a viral most people remember the video content and of those only a few will remember the product and out of those almost all will feel let down or slightly hoodwinked and miffed. (see diagram).
In this instance I think Bale has lost some respect either way. Those people that have made those remixes/ O’Reilly edits however have certainly gained some.What do you think? Real/not/does it matter?
Also – is it just me or does Christian Bale have a weird thing going on with his jaw? I only really noticed it post Machinist but it doesn’t seem to align easily after he says some bits of dialogue – anyone?
