Devon Chichester

March 30, 2026

Even if you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve still probably heard at least some news concerning Timothee Chalamet within the last month. Over the past year, he’s been on a record PR run promoting his movie Marty Supreme and his nomination for Best Actor at the Oscars. In March, his public image took a turn for the worse when he made a controversial remark regarding the ballet and opera, implying “no one cares” about them anymore. Almost immediately, the media fired on all cylinders in response. Everyone had something to say, from news articles and social media think pieces to comments by the MET and various presenters and guests at the Oscars, and the story seemed to last forever.

But this article isn’t about Timothee Chalamet. Not really. In fact, none of this media frenzy which centered the actor was really about him. In truth, it was about us. All of us, from the privileged actors just like Timothee—who love an opportunity to leverage another’s moment of bad PR for their own millisecond of positive press—to us at home, falling into tiktok black holes of heated debate and unified hatred for the current Hollywood punching bag.

Why do we do it? As soon as someone, especially someone who happens to be enjoying some sort of peak in their life or career, shows a chink in their armor or steps a toe out of line, we all too often  launch in unison to make sure they don’t go on unscathed in the public arena. Is it just part of the human condition? Are we all just spiteful creatures, waiting on the edges of our seats for an opportunity to bring another down so we can feel superior, if even just for a moment? 

Personally, I’d argue that it’s a little more complicated, and, although on the surface has a level of immature spite to it, less intentionally sinister. The truth is, everyone loves a scapegoat; someone to point to and make us all feel better about ourselves. If we didn’t have somebody to police over the little things like a bad critique on art or overconfidence in their acting career, we might actually have to start discussing the things that make us a little more truly uneasy. After brief moments of public attention, matters that are inarguably more serious—the Epstein files, aggressive ICE encounters, attacks on voting rights—are too often stifled by the noise of something that people can take a stance on without being afraid of the repercussions and without taking any true accountability. 

This isn’t to say that people should go unchecked so long as their wrongdoings aren’t as evil or pressing as the world’s most twisted and damaging injustices. Social critiques are a crucial part of developing the culture of a society and the character of those who exist within it, and humans will never stop judging other humans, whether they admit it or not. The problem arises when these relatively low tier social crimes garner the level of outrage and energy that we should be directing towards issues which are going to take us all down while we’re distracted by Hollywood’s latest problem child. By focusing on the debates that are fun to have and which no one has any real stake in, we are choosing to prioritize our present comfort over our future. By conducting business as usual and pretending that what’s going on in the entertainment industry should be at the forefront of our media realm, we are allowing greater evils to persist simply because we aren’t sure how to approach them.

It’s hard to talk about everything that’s going wrong in our nation and world right now. Even harder when it feels like even when we do use our voices, they go unheard. It’s easy to resort to social media debates over which influencer has the worst takes at any given moment when the alternative means facing dragons that are much less easily slain. But the more we hide behind each other in denial of our present reality, the more we wait complacently for evils that won’t discriminate when they come to a head. So sure, Timothee Chalamet probably could use the humbling we so readily served up to him. But let’s not let the next fleeting Hollywood crucifixion obscure the injustices we should actually be rallying against.