It’s 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.
The man I refer to is Timothée Chalamet, a talented young actor who stars in the multi-Oscar-nominated Marty Supreme, who was talking with fellow actor Matthew McConaughey at a “town hall event” organised by CNN and Variety in February (the comments only got attention two weeks later).
“I don’t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive,’ even though, like, no one cares about this any more — all respect to all the ballet and opera people out there,” Chalamet said, distinctly disrespectfully. “I just lost 14 cents in viewership. Damn, I just took shots for no reason.”