Big Kid

Drum roll please. The new celebrity vying for cutest dad of the year is . . . Christian Bale? That would be the same Christian Bale who dropped so many f-bombs in a rant on the set of Terminator Salvation that he almost made Mel Gibson look cuddly.

And now he's back in the spotlight, trying to convince Americans he's not such a bad guy . . . so come see my movie, The Fighter! The reviews alone were going to get us there, but then Bale had to go and do the ultimate ovary-buster. He admitted the song bouncing around in his head at the moment is the fault of his daughter, Emmeline.

The 5-year-old is apparently a big-time fan of that Cartoon Network gem The Powerpuff Girls. Take a look (and thanks to the ladies at Celebritology for the tip):

Oh, Christian, there's a reason you do more Dark Knight than dark musicals. But we can identify. When was the last time you were walking through town, heard your cell phone go off and started singing "the phone, the phone is ringing" without even noticing you were doing it? It's usually having another parent chiming in with the rest of The Wonder Pets theme song that clues you in -- those kiddie songs are like crack!

It tends to make me feel a little less dorky when other parents admit to having Yo Gabba Gabba! or The Imagination Movers on their iPod too (guilty and guilty -- I love me a party in my tummy, don't you?). Now here comes Christian Bale, the hard ass of all hard asses admitting it, and I'm melting.

He's single-handedly made me adore him for obviously taking time to hang out with his kid despite his busy ranting, er, filming schedule and made me feel less like an old fuddy duddy Mom. His hotness staring out of the cover of the Esquire in my magazine rack (promoting The Fighter) doesn't hurt either. Unfortunately, he told Esquire he's not really open to talking about the one thing that makes him most likeable:

Look, I've got incredible pride for my family. I've absolutely fallen into that cliché of a dad who could just happily talk about my daughter endlessly. But it's not what I'm about in terms of being an actor. I don't want people to know about that.

I can understand wanting to keep your family life private when you're a celebrity. But after a year of thinking Christian Bale was a bit of a jerk, it's this flash of him as a father that's made me like him again as a human, not just an actor. He should play to his strengths. Does seeing Bale in his dad role make you like him again?

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