What Leonardo DiCaprio was in the past is now Timothée Chalamet: he is an actor who is more than his films. He shapes a style. His success says something about the image of men today.
Berlin – Since “Titanic” and the early days of Leonardo DiCaprio, there has probably not been a young actor who is as present as Timothée Chalamet is currently.
The brown curls, the dreamy look, the charisma between little brother and aftershave model: the 26-year-old New Yorker, who has an American and a French passport, is one of the big stars of the Instagram generation. “Time” magazine just lifted him onto the cover picture. It is style-defining: “Vogue” celebrates its appearance on the red carpet. A man who wears dungarees with a tie-dye pattern or a rhinestone harness from Louis Vuitton around his torso.
He can do blockbusters and art house
Cinema-goers know Chalamet from “Interstellar”, “Lady Bird”, “Little Women” or as a drug addict son in “Beautiful Boy”. The gay love story “Call Me by Your Name” earned him an Oscar nomination when he was in his early 20s. This year Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch”, the science fiction epic “Dune” and just “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix followed, and he will soon be the young chocolate manufacturer in “Wonka”.
Chalamet knows festival films as well as blockbusters, at the same time he is a sensitive guy who tells his grandma on the cell phone that he loves her – that’s how “Time” magazine describes him. There is also some material for gossip: He was spotted with both Lily-Rose Depp, the daughter of Johnny Depp, and Madonna’s daughter Lourdes Leon. He is followed by 16.6 million people on Instagram.
It’s softer and more diverse
What does his success say about the zeitgeist? In German advertising you can already find men who are reminiscent of Chalamet’s type, for example in the Christmas clip of a supermarket in which a mother wishes her son the end of the pandemic. Agency director Claudia Midolo (Modelwerk) points out the differences between the fashion world and actors when it comes to model types. In the fashion industry, the more stereotypical man is still in demand, but not as pronounced as in the 90s with model Marcus Schenkenberg.
Midolo says that things are generally softer and more diverse, men are slimmer and no longer as muscle-packed. The new male image of the Chalamet type is also well represented. The target group is considered too young for expensive fashion. “That’s why this type of man is still more of a pioneer in the areas of drama, music and social media,” explains Midolo.
The literary scholar Toni Tholen (University of Hildesheim) has the following explanation “in all provisional terms”: Chalamet seems to correspond to what is called “hybrid masculinity” in masculinity research. Roughly summarized: He is moving away from the classic male image, dares to be a little more feminine, but does not lose male privileges in the process. He is committed, open and thoughtful, but is still extremely successful in the film and fashion industry.
Regarding the image of men in general, Tholen says: “Male dominance and patriarchal structures of rule have in some cases been massively questioned in recent years, mainly thanks to feminist criticism and politics, but also because men themselves suffer from the demands of masculinity and begin to question them. “
For Tholen, that doesn’t mean that these requirements have already disappeared. “The situation is undecided at the moment, because both can be observed: change and persistence, processes of transformation and the retraditionalization of masculinity. And it is completely open where the pendulum will swing stronger, especially if you look at the situation globally. “
In any case, it can be said that patriarchal masculinity has cracked. “At the moment, masculinity can perhaps best be understood as a formation of ambivalent and contradicting movements and positions; sometimes even as a search for new locations and ways of life, combined with a growing desire to no longer pretend to be ruler over people and things. “
How can and should a man be? So there is a lot of discussion about this question when you watch Chalamet and his films. A sequel to “Dune” is already planned. dpa
