Timothée Chalamet’s Specific Type of Cool
Tim Cha is so hot right now, hotter than Hansel crashing a funeral while Zoolander is making a eugoogly. Hot enough to warrant a two syllable nickname generally reserved for a horrible sounding celebrity couple mashup. Hot enough to withstand the scorching heat of the desert planet Arrakis. The point I’m trying to make is that Tim Cha is hot right now. While he may be on the path to A list stardom, I believe he has a very specific type of appeal that has rarely been captured on film. I believe Tim Cha perfectly encapsulates Extremely Cool to One and Only One Subsection of Society.
Extremely Cool to One and Only One Subsection of Society
Do you remember when you were in high school and there was that one kid that had graduated but still came back to hang out? You know the badass that teacher’s couldn’t tell what to do if he snuck into a class? The total renegade that had experienced college parties but was still so cool that they came to the high school house parties. Do you also remember the day you realized that this person was not cool at all and they were in fact a mix of immature, not cool and kind of sad? How about the guy at the office that always knows when the building fire drill is happening before they actually happen? This is very specific type of cool as opposed to a pretty globally appealing cool. For counter examples, I present T-Rexes — super cool to toddlers and grown adults alike. Ok so admittedly that’s not because of their personalities so I’ll use another example, LeVar Burton — from Reading Rainbow to Geordi La Forge, again super cool to toddlers, nerds, Jeopardy fans and everyone in between. So now that we’ve identified Extremely Cool to One and Only One Subsection of Society (I suggest we just call this being timshaa after this is published), we need to dive deep into how Tim Cha captures this.
Lady Bird
Kyle plays in a band that is pretty rad…and will go nowhere, only to be remembered by a handful of people in the Sacramento class of 2004. Kyle knows about the government’s war crimes and not to trust cell phones…but also absolutely nothing beyond those surface level facts. Kyle plays it cool with Ladybird and doesn’t make a big deal about relationships…which probably means he’s an emotionally stunted, future man-child. Kyle goes to house parties and broods alone, smoking cigarettes by the pool…ok that’s pretty much always cool.
Little Women
This one is a little easier but also a little harder since Laurie is a supporting character in Little Women. Despite being hella rich and mad attractive and throwing the most scenic of picnics while rocking a dope vest like some sort of 19th century Han Solo, it seems like Laurie has limited appeal. His demographic seems to be exclusively the March sisters and even then, not for very long. My dude proposes to two of the sisters and both of him shoot him down. In an echo of my hypothesis, the March family thought the world of Laurie when they were younger but when they grew up and needed to mature, they didn’t want Laurie to be a part of that.
The French Dispatch
In the third section of The French Dispatch, we meet Zeffirelli. Zeffirelli is the leader of the vague revolution of French college kids against war and society and bad things in general. There are much more competent members of this group such as his female counterpart that could lead this revolution but Zeffirelli is a really cool guy at the café (as his cigarette suggests) and he cares about the important issues, such as allowing the intermingling of the boys and girls dorms. Zeffirelli is such a cool guy that on charisma alone, he leads the group through a grueling chess based standoff in their captured territory. But even in this fortuitous revolution, everyone slowly starts to realize that his manifesto doesn’t quite make sense. Nonetheless, he perseveres and his coolness is immortalized in an incredibly fitting way.
Dune
In his latest work, Tim Cha plays Paul Atreides — 50% weak child, 50% god emperor, 100% cool. Amongst the inhabitants of Dune, Paul appears to fulfill a prophecy of being the most badass dude of all time that knows how to tame the desert and wear a suit (not joking). These people will fight a war for him, they will worship him and alter the course of civilization forever. Meanwhile, we have everyone outside this group of people that brush off Paul as a scrawny little kid. Duncan makes fun of his lack of muscles, the Bene Gesserit think he is at best an incompetent male and his parents are constantly chiding him for being a dumb 15 year old kid.
What’s next?
Tim Cha has been cast to play Willy Wonka in the first film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory since the one in 1971. There have been no others since then, I promise you. Based on the characters we’ve just studied, it wouldn’t be surprising if Wonka is the king of Oompa Loompas and children but viewed as a deranged, child mutilating, sweatshop mogul that is obsessed with snozzberries in this rendition. Or maybe Tim Cha will graduate to being a universally cool guy and we’ll lose the archetype for Extremely Cool to One and Only One Subsection of Society. Just in case we lose our Tim Cha, go admire the timshaa’s you have in your own life. From the girl that can get you to the front of the line at a club you didn’t want to go to the guy that knows where to get fresh alpaca meat in the middle of the city, go tell them that you think they’re hella tight.
