Christian Bale Pitches A Fit

I risk treading somewhat into gossip territory here for a couple of reasons. First, because the last time I wrote a story about Christian Bale's behavior - or alleged behavior - it sparked off a firestorm in the comments threads and firestorms - at least ones as well behaved as this one generally was - can be both entertaining and productive. Second, because when I wrote that last piece - it was about Bale's arrest over an alleged assault on his mother and sister - a healthy percentage of the comments generally went something like, "How could you suggest such a good actor could do something like that?" And my answer is that being good in one area of your life does not preclude you from being kind of a dick in other areas of your life. Case in point:

Right around the same time that the assault allegations arose there was another Christian Bale misbehavior story that generally got overlooked because of all the attention paid to the assault story, this one revolving around the star throwing a tantrum on the set of Terminator Salvation, angered by the Director of Photography walking through his line of sight to check on the lighting of a scene. Well, turns out that as part of that tantrum - and there really is no other word for it - Bale threatened to walk off of the film if the DOP was not fired and that threat led to a recording of the tirade being filed with the film's insurance agent on the chance that Bale made good on his threat and actually walked. And now that tape has gotten out into the public. And can be heard here.

My question is this: Why on earth do we put up with this sort of behavior from stars? Any other job and Bale would have been given his walking papers before he got even a quarter of the way through this profanity laden explosion but we almost seem to prize this sort of behavior from artists and the like. Seriously, someone needs to tell Christian to chill out.