The hosts of The View have rounded on Timothée Chalamet after the actor sparked widespread backlash for calling ballet and opera “dying art forms that no one cares about anymore” during a town hall with Matthew McConaughey.
The comments went viral over the weekend, and on Monday’s episode the co-hosts made no attempt to soften their response.
Sunny Hostin, who is a member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, was particularly direct.
“I didn’t realise he was that vapid and that shallow,” she said, describing herself as “offended and disappointed” by his remarks.
Guest co-host Sheryl Underwood, filling in for Alyssa Farah Griffin during her maternity leave, was slightly more forgiving, attributing the moment to Chalamet’s age, he is 30, and the casual setting of the conversation.
“And you sitting with Matthew McConaughey and y’all kiki-ing and chopping it up… I think he thought he could say that,” she said, referencing his recent starring role in Marty Supreme.
“First, he just made the good ping-pong movie. He’s a young, handsome man, but I bet if he was playing Rudolf Nureyev… he’d respect the art form a little bit better.”
She added a broader point aimed at younger public figures generally.
“That goes to show a lot of young people need to understand, don’t just flip off and say something. Really understand that your words have meaning to other young people.”
Whoopi Goldberg was having none of the “he’s young” defence, particularly given Chalamet’s own family background. Both his mother and sister have worked in ballet.
“You come from a dance family, and so when you crap on somebody else’s art form, it doesn’t feel good,” she said. “It doesn’t feel good to see.”
She was equally unimpressed by Chalamet’s attempt to soften the blow by joking afterwards, “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there… I just lost 14 cents in viewership.”
Goldberg’s response was withering.
“You probably didn’t realise, until you said, ‘Oh, I’m in trouble,’ but then you compounded it, and said, ’14 cents’, no, when people get mad, it’ll be a lot more than 14 cents. So be careful. I’m just saying. Be careful, boy.”
When the studio audience reacted with surprise at the word “boy,” Goldberg stood her ground.
“He is a boy to me. No disrespect. Really, don’t apologise when you’ve insulted ’cause it doesn’t sound right. You can’t say, ‘Oh, this is dumb, no disrespect.’ That’s absolute disrespect.”
It is worth noting that Chalamet has expressed similar sentiments before.
Back in 2019, while promoting The King, he reflected on his early career and mused that acting had started to feel like “maybe opera or ballet or something, it’s kind of like a dying art form or something.”
The recent CNN comments, then, were less a slip of the tongue and more a view he appears to have held for some time.
