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It\u2019s quite sweet, really. So desperate are some people to get their knickers in a twist on the internet that, in the face of a lull in the culture wars (we have real wars now), the only thing they have found to get outraged about recently relates to a man saying nobody cares about ballet and opera any more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The man I refer to is Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, a talented young actor who stars in the multi-Oscar-nominated Marty Supreme, who was talking with fellow actor Matthew McConaughey at a \u201ctown hall event\u201d organised by CNN and Variety in February (the comments only got attention two weeks later).\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, keep this thing alive,\u2019 even though, like, no one cares about this any more \u2014 all respect to all the ballet and opera people out there,\u201d Chalamet said, distinctly disrespectfully. \u201cI just lost 14 cents in viewership. Damn, I just took shots for no reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is evidence of Chalamet having made similar comments before, such as on the Graham Norton Show<\/a> in 2019 when he called opera an \u201coutdated art form\u201d and at an event<\/a> the same year where he said he was worried that cinema would become like \u201copera or ballet or something, kind of like a dying art form or something\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n He also, as many of those who claim to feel so offended have pointed out, has close family connections to the world of classical dance. His mother, grandmother and sister all danced with the New York City Ballet, and he has spoken about<\/a> growing up \u201cdreaming big backstage at the Koch Theater in New York\u201d, where the Ballet performs. As someone who tried to pursue a career in pop music while my older sister pursued one in classical piano, I would wager that he has been honing this particular attack \u2014 or perhaps defence \u2014 line since adolescence. <\/p>\n So his apparently instant regret at his slip felt a bit disingenuous.\u00a0But then so did some of the outrage it provoked. \u201cI\u2019m offended and disappointed in what he said,\u201d intoned one of the hosts of the ABC show The View, as if he had said something genuinely despicable and significant. \u201cI didn\u2019t realise that he was that vapid and that shallow.\u201d (She missed the chance to call him Timoth\u00e9e Shallow-meh \u2014 perhaps she was going for gravitas.) \u201cWhen people get mad, it will be a lot more than 14 cents, so be careful,\u201d her co- host Whoopi Goldberg chimed in. <\/p>\n First, let\u2019s acknowledge where Chalamet is correct: much as the worlds of opera and ballet might be (quite rightly) using the comments as a marketing opportunity \u2014 the Seattle Opera offered a 14 per cent discount with the promo code \u201cTIMOTHEE\u201d<\/a> \u2014 and an opportunity to talk about their popularity, the fact is that they have been in decline over recent decades, and rely largely on government funding to survive. The proportion of the US population that had attended the opera fell by more than three quarters between 1982 and 2022, according to a 2023 survey<\/a> from the US National Endowment for the Arts; for ballet the decline was slightly smaller but still more than half. <\/p>\n Where Chalamet is quite wrong, however, is in his idea that this means that \u201cno one cares\u201d about these art forms any more, or that they are \u201cdying\u201d in any real sense. They may not have mass-market appeal, but the people who do go and see them care about them very much \u2014 a lot more than your average Friday night movie-goer. <\/p>\n The idea that we should value art, or even how much people care about it, based on its popularity is a nonsense. Going to see an opera might be more intellectually and emotionally demanding than snuggling down to watch a movie, but that\u2019s part of the point.<\/p>\n One of my good friends, Felicity Matthews, is a viola player in the Royal Opera House orchestra. If she were thinking about her personal life, finances or health, she wouldn\u2019t do it \u2014 she has two young children; the commute is two hours each way (she pays for the train fare herself out of her modest salary); she is often not back until after midnight; she is in pain because of the physical demands of playing her instrument. <\/p>\n But so huge does she consider the privilege of what she gets to do every day, she barely sees these as sacrifices. \u201cYou enter that building and there are so many people working to bring this production to life, and they\u2019re all at the highest level and pulling together for one purpose,\u201d she tells me. \u201cThat\u2019s what I really love, that\u2019s what gives me a buzz.\u201d <\/p>\n If Chalamet wants to make movies that millions go to see, that\u2019s fair enough, and I hope he continues to do so. But, all respect to him, though Marty Supreme is a brilliant film, I doubt anyone will care much about it 250 years from now.\u00a0<\/p>\n