Marty’s beef with ballet and opera: Timothée Chalamet exposes his arrogance to the world

Now more than ever, being a celebrity is less about showcasing art and more about growing egos and becoming a persona separate from the content they create.

Timothée Chalamet, one of the industry’s brightest stars, showed everyone how Hollywood has shaped young celebs with privileged beliefs.

At a February town hall hosted by CNN and Variety, Matthew McConaughey and Chalamet discussed legacy art, such as ballet and opera. Chalamet, much to many fans’ surprise, decided to make a rather uncouth point, which triggered large amounts of backlash from the internet and his fellow stars. 

“I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera, or you know, things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive,’ even though it’s like, no one cares about this anymore,” he said.

Oh, how wrong he was. 

Chalamet’s comments not only drew criticism from dancers, theatre critics, and artists across varying mediums, but have become the topic of many conversations and memes across the internet. His words also bring about the question of how out of touch Hollywood stars are from reality.

While many might believe that Chalamet’s comments were just a clumsy joke or expressed a simple preference, his words truly revealed a blind spot that has become surprisingly common amongst Hollywood stars, specifically younger generations.

There is this belief that film is the only “living” art form worth defending, investing, or participating in, while all older art forms are slowly dying relics that people keep in business simply out of obligation.

Regardless of the popularity and attention paid to ballet and opera compared to film, it does not negate the impact of Chalamet’s words.

In recent years, celebrity obsession and culture has truly warped our perceptions of Hollywood. Stars are praised for the food they eat, the weight they lose, and everything is shaped around inconsequential aspects like what designer they wore during whatever event. Politics and current world issues are ignored for more “important” things, like what celebrity is going to be in what cities for what premiere. 

It makes a lot of sense why Hollywood itself has grown an ego so big that anything outside its art is deemed not worthy, specifically among younger actors. Chalamet started his career as the young, humble, down-to-earth graduate from New York City’s LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.

There are plenty of interview clips from when he started gaining popularity of him not wanting to correct people on how they pronounce his name. As he’s booked major roles and gotten many awards, it seems his humbleness has turned into arrogance. 

His blunt opinions on ballet and opera were followed by roasts at last month’s Academy Awards and even through Miles Caton’s Sinners performance, where legendary ballerina Misty Copeland, who helped promote Chalamet’s Marty Supreme, appeared to do a pointe solo on stage. All the while, Chalamet laughed at each jab, even as his character was put under fire.

His attitude, while not only arrogant and privileged, paints him as thinking he is better than any other artist — which is historically illiterate. Misunderstanding the influence of art that came before yours, while also diminishing it, is downright rude.

If Chalamet plans to keep this character bright in this industry, he owes a whole population of artists an apology.