Alec Baldwin is the latest “victim” of self-inflicted speech act trauma. Unlike other white male celebrities such as Mel Gibson, Don Imus, and Michael Richards who recently have been pilloried for their thoughtless and harmful speech, Baldwin’s words originally were part a private speech act. 1 Another thing that distinguishes Baldwin’s words is that they do not contain racial epithets or formulate racist indictments.

Baldwin’s tantrum manifests the tensions between his frustration as a jilted parent, his use of the discursive conventions of an adolescent, and his judgement as a rational adult—all are present in his voicemail message to Ireland (his daughter). Unfortunately for Baldwin and his daughter, Baldwin’s frustrations are evident to the exact degree that his strategy is ineffective. Baldwin seeks on one level to cultivate empathy in his adolescent daughter by assuming the simultaneous roles of peer and parent. The probable results, however, are hurting/humiliating Ireland, vindicating Kim Basinger (Ireland’s mother and Baldwin’s ex-wife), and embarrassing (after the publicizing of the message) himself.

Yet, I can’t help but wonder what eleven-year-old would submit a voicemail delivered to her by her father to the public at large. Or was the dissemination of the private voicemail initiated by someone else? Whoever is responsible, the dissemination of the voicemail seems a vindictive act in some ways more characteristic of an adolescent than an adult. I am also somewhat embarrassed for Baldwin, but I don’t think his tantrum in and of itself is a sign that he is a bad parent (though he very well may be). I also suspect Ireland is nursing her hurt feelings. Basinger, for now, is keeping mum, which in the realm of public and judicial opinion is to her advantage.

As a cultural critic, what I’m most curious about are the various rhetorical strategies present in Baldwin’s voicemail which inchoately suggest that parenting is not merely a matter of rationality, but that it is a constellation governed by the gravitational forces of love, desire, vanity, and anger to name a few. I also find the message absurd and to this extent funny, even as I recognize that Baldwin’s vows to “straighten [her] ass out” could greatly distress an eleven-year-old girl, presuming, that is, she is in fact not “a rude, thoughtless, little pig.”