On Friday, The View will air a pre-taped interview with Alec Baldwin. Apparently, the actor offers profuse apologies to his daughter for his now-infamous phone rant and professes his willingness to quit his career-reviving role on the NBC sitcom “30 Rock” to concentrate on both his personal issues and those facing divorced fathers fighting to be a substantial part of their childrens lives. No news outlet, however, has reported that Alec will be expressing remorse for naming his daughter Ireland.
There are two things that concern me about this “scandal”.
The first is a purely selfish concern that the only sitcom on TV worth a damn could suffer when it is trying desperately to build on the critical acclaim it has accrued over one season, a show that episode after episode spotlights Baldwin as an network exec named Jack Donaghy, a hilariously aggressive authority figure who wields sharp wit, sharper dress sense, and a deep neurosis buried underneath it all. To see him in action is to be a believer.
The second is obviously the most “important”, although if Kim Basinger weren’t so concerned/vindictive (take your pick) it wouldn’t even be an issue.
“Hey, I want to tell you something, OK? And I want to leave a message for you right now. ‘Cause again, it’s 10:30 here in New York on a Wednesday, and once again I’ve made an ass of myself trying to get to get a phone to call you at a specific time. When the time comes for me to make the phone call, I stop whatever I’m doing and I go and I make that phone call. At 11 o’clock in the morning in New York and if you don’t pick up the phone at 10 o’clock at night. And you don’t even have the goddamn phone turned on. I want you to know something, OK?
I’m tired of playing this game with you. I’m leaving this message with you to tell you you have insulted me for the last time. You have insulted me. You don’t have the brains or the decency as a human being. I don’t give a damn that you’re 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you’re a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn’t care about what you do as far as I’m concerned. You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone.
And when I come out there next week, I’m going to fly out there for the day just to straighten you out on this issue. I’m going to let you know just how disappointed in you I am and how angry I am with you that you’ve done this to me again. You’ve made me feel like shit and you’ve made me feel like a fool over and over and over again. And this crap you pull on me with this goddamn phone situation that you would never dream of doing to your mother and you do it to me constantly and over and over again. I am going to get on a plane and I am going to come out there for the day and I am going to straighten your ass out when I see you. Do you understand me? I’m going to really make sure you get it. Then I’m going to get on a plane and I’m going to turn around and come home. So you’d better be ready Friday the 20th to meet with me. So I’m going to let you know just how I feel about what a rude little pig you really are. You are a rude, thoughtless little pig, OK?”
So this inflamed message from father to daughter has, to many, merely confirmed their suspicions that Alec Baldwin is a tempermental, abusive prick, who should never see his poor bereaved 11-year-old daughter ever ever again and should be shunned in Hollywood, but won’t be, ’cause they’re all idiot liberals like him and secretly laugh at concepts like “traditional family values”. (Think I did a good job at summing up the prevailing ‘Net opinion, with better spelling.)
I am not a parent; I have no desire to be one. Far from feeling guilt over some “womanly duty” left unperformed, I’m proud of my personal decision. I am not fit to turn my life around and over to a weaker being who needs me so completely. So this is not a parents perspective.
I was once a child, though. A stubborn young girl dealing with puberty, education, peer pressure, her body, her mind, her family; a bull-headed soon-woman once told by her father that “nobody really likes you, they just tolerate you”; a sullen teen once called a “piece of shit loser” by that same parent. It’s strange; now I’m almost 30, and my father acts like I’m his pride and joy. None of which makes talking to him any less tense. But I do sense that he loves me. Do I love him? Sure–he’s my dad. I don’t like him a great deal of the time, is all.
Parents who try in the face of a difficult situation–which I will say for arguments sake is what Baldwin is doing–may snap. That is to be expected when you give a damn. When the person you helped make possible is saying you don’t matter so much anymore, when the person you desire to be in their life, the role you think you should fill, when all of that goes haywire–ends will be reached, hair will be pulled, words will be uttered, and lives may be devastated. Growth may follow.
My hope is that Mr. Baldwin and his child work it out, but it also my concurrent wish that I don’t read about it in the story-starved media. (“Baldwin, Daughter Go To Disney World, Pics With Goofy Inside”; “Mad Dad Baldwin Threatens Daughter With Frozen Head of Walt Disney On Trip Gone Wrong”) I only truly care about it because I am over-sensitive to daddy-daughter dynamics, and think more Dads should be. Whether or not a man thinks he should be the template upon which his female child develops her opinion of other men, too bad; he is. The unequivocal nature of this fact is often chilling to consider.
At least Baldwin cares enough to make such a call. I am not kidding. Some say he is a bad father for berating his child this way? I say the truly bad father doesn’t call at all. Yes, his cursing was uncalled for. Perhaps he felt venom was the only way to get through to her at this point. Time will tell if irreparable damage has been done. Then you can toss Ireland Baldwin into the sad heap of women thrown off kilter in their lives by a nagging kink in the daddy-daughter dynamic. It sure ain’t lonely over here, sweetie.
Alec Baldwin