Chalamet Gate

4 min readMar 19, 2026

Chalamet Gate

Usually, I’m not much of an up-to-the-minute writer. I don’t chase the headlines and I don’t tend to have hot takes on current trends. Follow me for hot takes on 18 thcentury feminists and early 20 thCentury playwrights! But this Timothée Chalamet story about his dismissal of opera and ballet, calling them arts nobody cares about might be too up my street to resist. Art that nobody cares about is kind of my beat! I am also an artist that “ nobody “ cares about so I’m well placed to discuss this particular controversy.

The good news is that opera and ballet companies are making absolute hay out of this clumsy insult from a film actor. I’ve seen a glorious flurry of videos and photos and statements all suggesting that Chalamet go fuck himself (though never explicitly; they’ve all been infinitely gracious). My favorite one is a video from the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra in which none of the musicians know who Chalamet is. There are multiple Timothy discount codes. He’s wrong about people not caring about these forms. The people that care about them, care about them A LOT.

It’s a dumb ass thing to say and I don’t have the psychoanalytic skills to understand why a man with three generations of ballet dancers in his family would want to take shots at the family business — but I do understand why a movie star thinks his work is more important than opera and ballet. He’s operating out of a capitalist value system that a lot of people believe in. It’s the notion that the popularity, and the money something makes, gives something it’s value. He’s thinking that because more people have watched his movies than saw a production of La Traviata then his art must be better. He’s thinking that because a movie made millions at the box office, it is superior to an art that has to be subsidized. A lot of people think this way. They will not take your art seriously until you start making money from it. They don’t think you’re a professional until you’ve exchanged your art for currency. In this country, we don’t support the arts directly because many people see the arts as freeloading. They think we artists only have value if we’re bringing in money so what good are we?

This is why it’s important to consider all the things we value besides money. Because this kind of thinking is a trap. It’s how we ended up in this kind of soulless hellscape we’re dealing with. Only valuing money leads to having people like Donald Trump in charge. Putting capital above quality of life, kindness, scholarship, critical thought and the arts, leads to Trump world.

I’m not saying you have to like ballet or opera. It’s fine if those forms don’t speak to you but they are important and people do care about them tremendously. They’re also extremely popular — even if they can’t scale to movie theatre or TV numbers, due to being live performance with limited numbers of seats. There are reasons to engage with art that doesn’t do big numbers. I hope I don’t have to tell you what those reasons are. I think most people in my orbit are very aware of what the benefits of the arts are. But some people get confused and start to think only money matters. I’m actually grateful that Chalamet let his dumb assery fly and started the conversation. He’s made people mad enough to buy tickets for opera and ballet all over the world. I imagine it might help people realize that they DO care about things beyond money and popularity and that would be a gift. I know people who work in opera and ballet and I know people who’ve had to give up those aspirations due to lack of sustainable support. If one actor’s dumb ass comments can help keep these artists in the art, then it will have done some good.