I try to avoid gossip stuff here on the blog, but Christian Bale has been talking about Satan in the media a bit lately, and the resultant commentary is weird.
“Thank You to Satan”- Christian Bale
Today, the big news is that Bale thanked Satan for inspiring him in his role as Dick Cheney in the feel-good holiday film of the season “Vice”.
This wasn’t Bale’s first reference to Satanism in the public sphere, a few weeks ago in an LA Times interview he teased his thoughts about Satanism and Satanic philosophy in a jovial manner alongside Vice director Adam McKay.
LA Times correspondent Josh Rottenberg: In today’s climate, everything is now being seen through a political lens. How confident are you that people who aren’t already left-leaning will open themselves up to this movie and not just dismiss it as a slanted movie from liberal Hollywood?
McKay: [deadpan] I’m 100% confident, without a doubt. Our next screening is live in Dallas Cowboy Stadium and it’s going to be for the entire NRA. [laughs]
You know, honest to God, the only way to really get it is you have to see it. When we test screened it, there were plenty of Republicans in the audience and in our test groups they would always go, “That’s fair. That happened.” We didn’t have responses of people going, “That’s a lie!”
There will be people who won’t see it just because Adam McKay supported something they don’t like — and we all know Christian Bale is a very public Satanist.
Bale: [pumping his fist and chanting] Baphomet! Baphomet!
Obviously, the Baphomet reference was alluding to The Satanic Temple’s defense of their intellectual property against appropriation by Warner Brothers and Netflix in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Yet, it was the Church of Satan who capitalized on Bale’s Golden Globe comments by tweeting out support for the actor’s hails.
To us, Satan is a symbol of pride, liberty and individualism, and it serves as an external metaphorical projection of our highest personal potential. As Mr. Bale’s own talent and skill won him the award, this is fitting. Hail Christian! Hail Satan! https://t.co/ILuK8TFZXi
— The Church Of Satan (@ChurchofSatan) January 7, 2019
But it needs to be said that, if we’re paying attention, what Bale said was “Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration on how to play this role”. Anybody who understands context clues should note means that he’s conflating the character of Cheney with Satan in his acceptance. Suggesting that he was emulating Satan as the embodiment of evil when developing his portrayal of Cheney.
It was definitely more of a dig at the former Vice-President than a championing of Satanic ideas. Still, the very mention of Satan is an award acceptance speech is notable this year, if for nothing else than in just under 3 weeks a new documentary about the resurgent interest in Satanism (thanks to The Satanic Temple) called “Hail Satan?” will be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.
Taken in totality, it’s only a matter of time until the conspiracy theory nuts start making hay out of this. So that should be fun.
You can watch Bale’s acceptance speech below:
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/56kiM-sM0LU”]
(Image Credit: NBC, Screenshot via Youtube)