Within hours, the Metropolitan Opera and others posted pointed response videos, and media critics and TikTokers decried him as an “absolute fool” or a “closet Kardashian.” Some commentators even floated the notion that Chalamet had somehow talked himself out of Best Actor, and somewhere on social media, a meme circulated titled “How to Lose an Oscar in 10 Days.” Others angrily recirculated the young actor’s comments from Vogue’s December 2025 cover story, in which Chalamet described watching an interview with someone “bragging” about not having children and called it “bleak,” adding that “procreation is the reason we’re here.” On Tuesday, the BBC wondered aloud if “Hollywood golden boy Timothée Chalamet lost his shine.”

Yet Chalamet was right on the money — on both counts: the high culture of old is truly in its death throes, and there is nothing particularly noble or interesting about being childless. The controversy tells us less about his Oscar chances than about the culture’s growing discomfort with the newly bold, distinctly masculine version of Timothée Chalamet.

Consider what Chalamet represented to a certain slice of liberal millennials in the 2010s. From roughly the time he starred in the gay romance Call Me By Your Name (2017) through his donning of ill-fitting Willy Wonka garb in 2023, Chalamet served as the patron saint of the soft-boi era of masculinity. He was wispy, gentle-featured, androgynous in his fashion choices, conspicuously unthreatening, and seemingly designed to be appreciated by the female gaze without demanding anything uncomfortable in return. These qualities also made him the right choice to play Paul Atreides in the first installment of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune trilogy, released in 2021, which depicts the sci-fi protagonist in the soft-boi phase of his journey — before tragedy makes a man out of him.

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Chalamet cried beautifully on screen. Like Harry Styles, he wore pearls and ruffled blouses to red carpets without apology and seemed like someone who might carry Rebecca Solnit books in his “The Future Is Female” tote. Critics loved him. Feminist publications swooned for him. The industry adored him for embodying a certain vision of what sensitive, non-threatening maleness could look like.

The soft-boi era emerged from a moment when the cultural critique of bratty and boorish male behavior had widened into suspicion of all masculinity. “The Patriarchy” was treated as an omnipresent force, lurking in corporate offices and smoke-filled boardrooms, sure, but also in frat houses, subways, and in the suspicious motives of men both powerful and ordinary. Today’s man-spreaders would become tomorrow’s C-suite tyrants, trading promotions for sexual favors — or at least, keeping the office AC way too cold.  

“Bro” became a knowing insult, and the language of feminist theory spilled from Tumblr and gender-studies seminars into mainstream culture — the campus-to-Condé Nast pipeline. In the liberal professional world, especially, the ideal man was portrayed as sensitive, meek, and seeking apologies or consent for nearly everything he did. The soft-boi was less a man than a customer-service version of one.

The drastic vibe shift of the mid-2020s has been well-documented. With the decline of #MeToo and “peak woke,” the soft-boi began to be derided as the “performative male”: the man whose sensitivity was seen as a self-righteous personal-branding exercise rather than what, in liberal Millennial culture, was deemed allyship. Starting in 2024, the backlash culminated in Performative Male contests, in cities and college campuses where men dressed in oversized cardigans and sipped matcha while making land acknowledgments or talking about how they loved “queer spaces.” Gen-Z men’s backlash to their ultra-woke elders began to be reflected in lifestyle choices, especially in the emergence of two distinct types: churchgoing trads who want children; and resentful caricatures of the old versions of manhood: Andrew Tate and Barstool-brained wing of crypto gambling, lookmaxxing, podcast swagger, and overt misogyny worn almost proudly. Think of it as holy versus unholy. 

Chalamet, however, has drifted into a third lane. No longer a boy wonder at age 30, he’s looking less like a Parisian art-film star. He has been photographed in streetwear and baseball caps, guest-starring in rap videos and confidently appearing on ESPN football broadcasts. And he’s dating Kylie Jenner, a figure overtly, even aggressively feminine enough to demand a properly masculine counterpart — her exes are mostly rappers. He is now laden with swag, as the kids used to say. It’s unclear whether he sensed the seismic shift in the culture wars and made a market correction or simply evolved or matured with age. But the upshot is that these days, the king of Performative Males is performing a different species of man.

This new persona is interesting because he’s neither Tate nor Matt Walsh; neither a cartoon reactionary, a chest-thumping podcast bro, nor a trad husband looking for a wife with whom to attend a Latin Mass. He isn’t particularly religious or political. He became something unexpected and, in its own way, more old-fashioned: an unapologetic striver. At the 2025 Screen Actors Guild Awards, accepting the best-actor award for the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Chalamet openly declared that he was “in pursuit of greatness” and wanted to be “one of the greats.” It was one of those rare celebrity lines that sounded both faintly absurd and refreshingly honest, something you’d hear from professional athletes, not artists. Some bristled at the fact that he’d violated the current code of prestige modesty, in which everyone is supposed to present success as an accidental side effect of sincerity.

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This attitudinal shift has been reflected in his recent work. In A Complete Unknown, his Dylan is a difficult young man shaped by ego, self-invention, opportunism, and a refusal to remain defined by the people who loved him first. His mid-1960s Dylan goes electric, over and against the objections of his fanbase, essentially telling the folk world that their ownership of him was not his problem. And then came Marty Supreme, in which Chalamet plays a swaggering, self-mythologizing table-tennis prodigy — a film explicitly about the American drive for greatness, for dominance, for being the best at something even when the something in question is defiantly small, like ping-pong.

The film isn’t uncritical of this drive. That’s the point. Marty director Josh Safdie uses Chalamet’s character to examine the specifically American pathology of wanting to be legendary and how ambition curdles into ego, how ego can hurt the people around you, and how the pursuit of mastery isolates those whom it elevates. It is a complicated film about a complicated type. Both movies ask whether you can separate the art from the artist, and whether greatness can be pursued without vanity and collateral damage. The critics now writing their concern pieces about Chalamet are, without realizing it, providing a one-note answer to those questions: no, and they’d prefer you stop asking.

Ironically, this controversy is a bizarre mirror image of the time when actresses were tut-tutted by male critics for being messy, outspoken, and lacking a demure personality. That dynamic had a name — the difficult woman — and we got reasonably good at recognizing it. We are less practiced at recognizing its male obverse. This time, it has to do with the specific cultural discomfort that arises when a man who was useful as a symbol of sensitive, non-threatening masculinity starts suggesting that he is no longer interested in being a symbol of softness and passivity at all. That he wants to be what history once called a man.

What comes next is uncertain. Chalamet may or may not win the Oscar on Sunday. The ballet controversy broke too late to affect the vote, and his awards momentum had already dwindled before any of this. But regardless, in today’s American culture — one that endlessly sermonizes about art, authenticity, and excellence but is unnerved when a straight male star hungers for it — here’s hoping that the new Chalamet-ism endures.

Odessa A’zion, star of Marty Supreme and Rachel Sennott’s HBO series I Love LA, is a name of which you may only be vaguely aware. A raven-haired 25-year-old, daughter to the voice actress Pamela Adlon (aka Bobby Hill from cult animation King of the Hill) and the filmmaker Felix Adlon, is undeniably a nepo baby. Unfortunately for the peanut gallery, she is also an excellent actress. But no matter — the bitchfinder-generals of social media are determined to hate her anyway. She is, after all, a “jew mid”, “zionist nepo baby”, “jew psyop”, “IDF plant” according to the not at all spiteful public square. This young actress — despite having no association with Israel or Middle Eastern politics beyond the crime of simply being Jewish — has been so viciously targeted by the terminally online for her assumed beliefs that she had to announce on her public Instagram story that she was, as she put it, “not a zio”. A healthy and normal pop culture indeed.

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A’zion’s list of crimes is growing by the hour. There’s the “not quite blackfishing” accusation cowardly couched by the TikTok creator Georgie James, the logic of which goes that by dyeing and curling her hair, A’zion is attempting to look more, ahem, “Mediterranean” and ethnically “ambiguous” in order to muscle in on the social cachet of biracial Hollywood superstars. Then there was the Wigcident, as I am now calling it. During a red carpet interview last month, A’zion was asked if her hair was real. Evidently taking the red-carpet gratitude olympics too far (“I feel so blessed,” mewled everyone and her dog at the Golden Globes on Sunday), she said: “You think I can afford a wig like that? And wear it all the time? I’ve heard wigs can go up to like 20 or $30,000… are you fucking kidding me?” Cue a slew of armchair critics spitting feathers over her famous family and cinematic success, accusing her of playing mock-humble. Yes, she may have over-egged the pudding — but given how neurotic her fanbase seems to be, can you really blame her for trying to prostrate herself?

What a load of bad-faith nonsense this promising talent has had to field already. She’s been on the scene for all of five minutes but is already having to apologize for her Jewishness, withstand a purity test on Palestine and discuss the state of her finances. We are a million miles from the Hollywood of former decades, when stars like Johnny Depp and Sigourney Weaver would work with dodgy directors like Roman Polanski without facing any real stick — or when monsters like Harvey Weinstein were able to make the most of the casting couch as part of a smug open secret. A startling overcorrection has taken place which nastily guns for those whom fans once most adored: the young stars on the rise, the interesting new talents tasting well-earned fame and doing exciting things on screen. It seems all that has been swept away in favor of a sort of equal-opportunity fandom, where admiration is constantly tempered by jealousy and suspicion that a starlet might be the wrong kind of success story.

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Even A’zion’s Marty Supreme co-star is not immune. Timothée Chalamet, despite being perhaps the world’s most celebrated young actor, is getting similar accusations — notably, rounding on his Jewish heritage. Under a tweet celebrating Chalamet’s success in the Golden Globes — he won best actor in a musical or comedy — the eye-rolling goes turbo: “Why do you think he has been pushed so hard,” writes one anonymous account; another intones: “He’s a huge star in Hollywood getting an unreal push from the media. Lol ya it’s probably a safe bet he’s Jewish.”

Clearly, antisemitism is in the water. In this climate, the successes of someone talented can be conveniently wafted off as the product of in-group plotting and industry-planting, calling on ancient conspiracy theories heard more often in the wake of October 7. But the focus on Jewishness is just one — and perhaps the most noticeable — of a range of modern refrains which make insecure audiences feel better about someone else’s achievements. The fact is that any perceived advantage — beauty, family, even ambition — renders fame undeserved in this pitiful age of envy. Think of the purportedly feminist outcry at Sydney Sweeney’s breasts, or the sudden shocked realization that many famous actors also have famous parents (a state of affairs as old as the film industry itself), or indeed the backlash against Chalamet saying, while accepting an award no less, that he was determined to be “one of the greats” last year. In 2026, the worst thing a celebrity could be is satisfied and successful — which is why another wave of spite broke out when Chalamet declared his love for Kylie Jenner at the Critics’ Choice Awards. And if you’re asking yourself why Chalamet seems always to be at the scene of the crime, here’s your answer: he is the most successful.

None of this tall-poppy scything benefits a soul, least of all the arts themselves. But the frequency and vitriol of online dogpiles seems likely only to increase; they are, after all, built into the algorithms of social media. For a generation of Zillennial underachievers too nervous and inept to conduct a job interview, let alone lift an Oscar, the best justification for your failure to thrive is the same as any toddler’s complaint: It’s just not fair! Couple that with the delicious dopamine loop of liking and retweeting a vindictive post about someone whose life you’d very much rather have, and the well of celebrity culture is hopelessly poisoned.

You might not give a fig about the consequences of this, but the pool of talent in the entertainment industry may well go the way of that in politics: dismal and packed with dopey masochists — after all, who else would put up with the abuse? For a rational adult to succeed in the hypercritical pop culture of 2026, they have to be willing to swallow the most bitter of pills and perform continual meekness, forever on the right side of social media’s obsessions. The result? Zara Larsson, the Swedish pop star, posting a bizarre Instagram story last week reeling off all the groups she “loves” which, you’ll be glad to know, includes… “criminals”. In trying to appease the peanut gallery, celebrities can only ever look like clowns. It’s high time we remembered why we used to elevate people in the first place, with the only test that really matters: are they any good?

As Arthur C. Clarke put it:“I know nothing comparable to it except The Lord of the Rings.” It’s a justified parallel. Dune is as central to science-fiction as JRR Tolkien’s masterpiece is to fantasy.

With Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (2021) on general release we finally have a decent film adaptation. Villeneuve has done for Herbert what Peter Jackson did for Tolkien in the Rings trilogy (2001-2003). But dig a bit deeper into the comparisons, and I fear that team Tolkien comes off worse.

Let’s start with the central character in each story: Frodo Baggins in Tolkien’s epic and Paul Atreides in Herbert’s. Both embody the archetype of the reluctant hero. On screen, they’re portrayed by similar actors — Elijah Wood as Frodo and Timothée Chalamet as Paul. These are very much of a type: one part leading man, two parts haunted Victorian doll. Chalamet, though, oozes charisma, while Wood merely gains our sympathy. Score one to Dune. 

Then there’s the rest of the cast — which in the case of Dune meets the multi-ethnic criteria of contemporary film making. The Rings trilogy, almost 20 years older, does not. This is hardly Jackson’s fault — nor Tolkien’s for that matter. There’s an obvious difference in context between a fantasy world inspired by Nordic legend and the galactic melting pot of the far future. 

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As for gender balance, it must be admitted that Tolkien’s tale is a bit of a Boy’s Own adventure. Nevertheless, Jackson did his best to push female characters to the forefront. It hasn’t been so difficult for Villeneuve. For a start, the source material provides more to work with — for instance the “Bene Gesserit”, an order of terrifying space-nuns. Also Villeneuve was able to change the sex of one of the originally male characters, the scientist Liet Kynes, without it making much difference to the plot. I’m not sure Jackson could have done the same to, say, Gandalf. 

Still, such excuses won’t cut much ice with today’s progressives. We can expect their tutting disapproval to be layered on top of previous attacks on Tolkien and everything he supposedly represents. 

Dune is a progressive view of the future — it features a revolution against the established order. Tolkien’s fiction, on the other hand, is portrayed as nostalgic and reactionary — a yearning for a golden age that never existed. After all, what are the Hobbits except idealised Little Englanders who’d have definitely voted for Brexit?

The irony is that Lord of the Rings was once at the cutting edge. Though first published in the mid-1950s, it didn’t become a publishing sensation until a decade later — around the same time as Dune in fact. Both novels achieved cult status with the counterculture of the late 1960s. This was a more comfortable fit for Herbert, the free-thinking Californian, than for Tolkien, the tweedy, Catholic Englishman. Yet the latter did once observe that his political opinions “lean more and more towards Anarchy”.

The narcotic obsessions of the Sixties are lavishly catered for in Dune — whose entire plot (spoilers ahead!) revolves around a perception-altering substance called “Spice”. There is rather less druggery in Tolkien’s fiction, but some have interpreted the “pipeweed” of the Hobbits as consisting of more than tobacco. Certainly, one can see why the hippies were so entranced by the bucolic, laid-back lifestyle of the Shire. 

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A strong current of environmentalism runs through both books. However, while Herbert was a self-taught ecologist, Tolkien’s obvious distaste for industrialisation strikes his critics as sentimental and unsophisticated. Herbert’s ideas appear to be more astute because they’re informed by scientific and technological speculation. Though the events of his novel take place 20,000 years into the future, they clearly relate to the concerns of our own time. 

Let’s start with the desert world of Dune itself, also known as Arrakis. The planet is the only source of the aforementioned Spice — a drug that enables humanity to navigate between the stars. Without it, space travel would be impossible. Wars are therefore fought to control access to this indispensable resource. 

One only has to substitute crude oil for Spice to see what Herbert was getting at. For a book written in the early 1960s — years before oil shocks of the 1970s — he was well ahead of the curve. To drive the point home, his description of Dune and the culture of its native inhabitants is saturated with words and concepts adapted from Arabic and from Islam. 

Herbert tackles some other contemporary concerns — for instance the risks posed by artificial intelligence. In the future he imagines, AI has been forbidden: the most solemn of religious commands is “thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind”.

A technology that hasn’t been banned is the “Axlotl Tank” — an organic machine used by a branch of humanity called the “Bene Tleilax” to give birth to clones. The horrible suggestion is that because the Bene Tleilax are exclusively male, the Axlotl Tanks are all that remain of their females. This is the bio-politics of surrogacy taken to its ultimate, ghastly conclusion. 

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You won’t find biting social commentary like that in the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s story was more expansive; it was about something that will never change, which is the corrupting effect of power. Yet this is where Tolkien is superior to Herbert. His heroes — and heroines — pass the test because they refuse to accept the world-changing power that the Ring would confer upon them.

My favourite passage in all of Tolkien is where Frodo freely offers the Ring to Galadriel. For a heart-stopping moment, the elven queen is tempted. It would, after all, be better for her to wear the Ring than the evil Sauron. Yet she understands that she too would be made monstrous by it: “All shall love me and despair!” And so she refuses Frodo’s gift. 

Frank Herbert’s hero, however, does not refuse. There is no actual Ring in Dune, but there is ultimate power. Paul Atreides takes it. Later he has second thoughts, but not before his galactic Jihad has killed sixty billion people and sterilised ninety planets. Bit late to turn pacifist after that. 

Perhaps I’m being unfair. Herbert did say that the “power attracts pathological personalities” and that his stories were meant as a warning that “superheroes are disastrous for mankind”.

And yet in the sequels to Dune, Paul’s son, Leto, takes up where his dad left off. In fact, he turns himself into a giant worm (don’t ask) and imposes an absolute dictatorship on the known universe for next three thousand years. Crucially, Herbert provides him with an excuse — the “Golden Path” — meaning a super-human vision of the best possible future for all mankind. Any unpleasantness along the way is justified by the greater good. 

I think we’ve heard that one before. 

In 1965 Tolkien was sent a copy of Dune. The next year, he was sent another one. Writing back he confessed that he was familiar with the book — and disliked it “with some intensity”. As usual, the old man was right.