Variety reports a “backlash” over comments Timothée Chalamet made about ballet and opera, saying he didn’t want theatrical movies to become like that, where nobody cares about them, per this tweet from Variety.
And of course, everyone threw a fit because everyone gets offended over every little thing. But Chalamet is 100% right. He means he doesn’t want to see movies become a niche cultural event. Hey, it’s great that there are people who appreciate ballet and opera but who are we kidding? They are a luxury few can afford. They are most appreciated by the upper class and always have been. Only recently has the upper class decided they should be diverse and inclusive and they tinkered with them to make them so. These are lovely, beautiful art forms but movies are meant to serve a different purpose, which was his point.
Where the Oscars are concerned, I’ve always worried they would become the Tony Awards. They’re not quite there yet, and one reason they aren’t is that both Chalamet and Michael B. Jordan, two very popular actors, are in the running.
The problem with the Oscars is that the public has, for the most part, been left out, even though everyone seems to be trying to fix it. They go from film festivals, private screenings for Film Twitter (aka “critics”), and then are placed in categories by the Oscar bloggers, and then those are the templates used by the Golden Globes, the National Board of Review, the Critics’ Choice, and then placed for the Oscars. It is mostly a rigged game, soup to nuts, because the public is no longer involved.
Sinners should win for that reason alone. If it doesn’t, many people who have just become interested in the Oscars will find a reason not to care about them. I was watching The Silence of the Lambs last night and thinking about how good it was. That we get through the whole movie of fantastic scenes between Clarice and Hannibal, then we get the whole last third, which includes one last scene between the two of them, Hannibal’s escape, and Clarice facing off the killer. That is what Sinners reminds me of – a full meal at the movies and something we don’t see often enough.
And we never will, at least not at that level, unless the Oscars can somehow include the public and Hollywood can try to make great movies not for critics, not for the arthouse crowd, but for the public. One of the things that irritates me about the so-called “feminist horror movies” is that these movies are made for the filmmakers to express themselves, like they’re in primal therapy or something. The aim of making films can be to make art. But they can also make MOVIES for audiences. THAT is the point Chalamet is making, and it’s a good one.
Nothing about our modern age is more annoying than people getting upset about something someone said, especially when it’s their chosen interpretation rather than the truth. If someone makes a joke, for instance, as I did on X, which gets the attention of so many on the app and then leads to an “investigative report about what I think” by Rebecca Keegan, that is a modern-day witch hunt, a swarm, and ultimately a lie.
I was being accused and convicted of racism because people did not get my joke, and I didn’t try to help explain it to them (why bother?). I was right to mock “white dudes for Harris” for suddenly deciding a white identity group was okay. And yes, I know they make the rules, and we have to suffer our punishments regardless, but I refuse to play that game, and here we are.
So now, the hive mind has decided Timothée Chalamet must be turned into a character that doesn’t actually exist in real life to satisfy their need to throw people into the public arena for shaming. Hey, it worked for the Romans. They got to feel better about themselves while watching other people suffer.
But one thing to note is that everyone has decided his “bad behavior” cost him the Oscar, and that’s why Michael B. Jordan is winning—if he wins. We still don’t know who will win the Oscar. It still might be Chalamet.
I hope Chalamet takes a page from his girlfriend, Kylie Jenner, and just lets it roll off his back. When they decide to come for you, when you are “it,” there is no fixing that. Don’t apologize. Be yourself. Be unique. Don’t become a Stepford Wife for the modern age and behave like everyone else.
We don’t actually know how Best Actor will turn out, but in general, the Oscars don’t tend to go for younger “pretty boys.” Michael B. Jordan is almost 40, and Chalamet is 30. They’re both young. They’re both pretty, but Jordan plays two different characters in Sinners and has some incredibly emotional scenes toward the end. Chalamet was great in Marty Supreme. If anything hurt the movie, it was the many fake scandals hurled at them early on. Other stories were, to my mind, a whole lotta nothing.
It’s possible all of these things cast a stench upon the movie – and then again, maybe not. But this group that seeks to destroy Chalamet, or anyone else, is what is wrong with our culture now. It’s repulsive, and we should reject it.
You can subscribe to the Buzzmeter by heading over to Substack.
