Passionate, earnest, and dedicated are three words I would’ve used to describe actor Timothée Chalamet pre-Marty Supreme. In a new age of cinema that prioritizes social media follower counts, bleak lighting, and “iphone face”, Chalamet felt like a fresh breath of air with his outward passionate, earnest, nature, most notably demonstrated in his speech about becoming “one of the greats”. Movies like Beautiful Boy, Lady Bird, and Little Women exemplified Timothée’s ability to act his heart out; in every role he was completely transformed and captured the audience’s heart with his immersion and understanding of each of his characters. It’s no secret he’s been the internet’s favorite poetic, passionate, profound white boy since Call Me by Your Name. However, public opinion has slowly turned on him over the course of three years, with his primarily female audience now finding his desire to be one of the “greats” — which once was the same thing they praised him for — off-putting, desperate, and in bad faith. Are they right? Does Timothée Chalamet deserve an Oscar this season despite public sentiment going against him right now?
Let’s take a couple steps back, and pinpoint when exactly Chalamet started to lose footing with his audience and general sentiment. Chalamet’s current girlfriend, billionaire Kylie Jenner, has been a controversial figure on account of her family, the ever-elusive Kardashians, alongside her billionaire status. When it came to their relationship being public, Jenner has faced a ton of backlash from Chalamet’s fans, who allude she is too different for Chalamet and is incapable of being as “deep”, poetic, or knowledgeable in the arts as the all-knowing Chalamet. Let it be known that all criticisms of Jenner from this perspective are deeply rooted in misogyny and generate no valuable or critical discourse about the Kardashians as a whole and only work to further drag & degrade female celebrities, while Timothée does not get the same backlash. Coming out with a public relationship with a Jenner sparked a lot of internet discourse surrounding Timothée’s “true” character but wasn’t enough to fully have the public cancel him or let go of their obsession with his infectiously charismatic nature. Yet, it serves as the first crack in Chalamet’s perfectly curated image of being a passionate, hungry, and earnest actor waiting to prove himself.
Now let’s talk about Marty Supreme, a movie with a synopsis of “Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.” Sound familiar? Extremely reminiscent of Chalamet himself, the movie itself came out on Christmas of 2025 and had the internet buzzing about it for a while after due to the generational and unique press run Chalamet presented. Celebrities like Tom Brady, Justin & Hailey Bieber, Kid Cudi, and of course Kylie & Kendall Jenner were all seen sporting the Marty Supreme tracksuits. People began to wonder where they could get their hands on this merch, leading A24 to release a limited number of tracksuits totaling over 400 USD sold only in New York for four hours. It was a fad everybody wanted to get their hands on, and the movie had as high as 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and averaging 4.1 on Letterboxd. So what about this movie had people starting to turn against him?Â
During this press tour, Chalamet had some, let’s say, interesting takes about different professions in the arts as well as his thoughts on childless women.  While the A-lister’s thoughts on childless women’s lives had backlash, it certainly is not comparable to the outrage about his comments regarding the lifespan of opera and ballet. Celebrities such as Doja Cat, Whoopi Goldberg, and many more have come out to talk about Chalamet’s controversial take. And there have been many, many discourses on Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram, you name the platform, there was probably some semblance of discourse on it.
As someone who would’ve considered themselves a casual, but supportive TimothĂ©e Chalamet fan pre-dating Marty Supreme, I think I can confidently say this press tour has put him at the bottom of the pyramid of internet-white-boys, and undeserving of an Oscar this awards season. Marty Supreme, a tale about a white, deadbeat, one-dimensional, narcissistic character is nothing new. But I enjoyed it, because stories with morally reprehensible characters aren’t inherently bad, but the promotion and tactless comments surrounding this movie indicate a level of immaturity from Chalamet I thought he grew out of. Movies like Beautiful Boy and Little Women demonstrate Chalamet’s ability to touch the audience’s hearts. He was able to play a teenage drug addict so convincingly I thought it was an autobiographical movie (jokes)! In Little Women I found myself relating to the yearning nature of Laurie — especially in the hill scene. So what about those performances made Chalamet decide to pivot completely to a movie like Marty Supreme? There have been multiple theories floating around, speculating that he instead wants to cater to a more male audience or that he’s soft-launching becoming more right-wing since his girlfriend’s family tends to lean that way, both with the overarching idea these methods will finally get him that Oscar. Personally, I don’t completely believe either of these ideas. Maybe he really does think that male audiences are capable of getting him the Oscar. In my opinion, women are the entire reason he’s popular. Women are the reason most media become popular in the first place, so if he truly is trying to pander to a more male audience, he can kiss goodbye to becoming one of the greats. Women will always be at the forefront as founding fathers of fandom culture, the very thing that makes celebrities popular or not, and Chalamet is no exception.Â
Overall, I just find it so disappointing that a man as well-spoken, passionate, and earnest as he decides to — seemingly — have such a lack of care on his own commentary when it comes to women-dominated arts such as ballet and opera. Truth is, even if these industries are dying, I don’t find it funny or appropriate for a man, who has no experience in either, to talk about how he doesn’t want that to happen to him. If Chalamet had taken more care into speaking about how these industries dying is incredibly disheartening and hits close to home because he too, is in the arts, there would have been no fuss. At the end of the day, there will always be another Marty Supreme, a movie fixated on white men’s mediocrity, obsession with greatness, and failed character development. Maybe Chalamet can take a couple of pages from Sinners actor and award winner Michael B. Jordan’s book and assimilate himself with qualities like humility, intentionality, and humor.Â