Why Chalamet Is Right To Want a Knicks Title Over An Oscar
Credit : Gregory Shamus/Getty
by Ken Jones, Guest Editorial
The New York Knicks won the NBA title for the first time in 53 years on Saturday. Among the Knicks fans who got to celebrate was actor Timothee Chalamet, who has become a fixture at Knicks’ games in the last few years. When the Knicks won the title, an elated Chalamet exclaimed, “Way rather this than the Oscars! Come on, baby! Knicks are champions, baby!”
Timothee Chalamet is right.
I get that there was some backlash to the Chalamet Oscar push over the past year. He faced backlash during the Marty Supreme press tour over comments he made about ballet and opera that may or may not have cost him the Best Actor Oscar this year.
Winning the Oscar is a massive personal achievement. A career goal for anyone in the industry, whether they would admit it or not. It's recognition for excellence in your craft. It's a career-defining moment. But winning an Oscar, despite all the effort and hard work, is arbitrary and no sure thing.
Ultimately, it is decided by votes. That means being at the mercy of the judges, so to speak, instead of having the results determined by points on the scoreboard. That makes the outcome subject to bias, persuasion, sympathy, or how "best" is defined by a voter. An actor has control over the quality of their performance; after that, it is out of their hands.
Also, Kubrick. Hitchcock. Lynch. Cruise. Close. Ford. McQueen. None of these luminaries won an Oscar. And how often has someone won an Oscar for what was not considered their best work? No one thinks The Departed is Martin Scorsese’s best film.
So why is Chalamet right?
Being a sports fan is even harder to endure because there is even less control; you’re along for the ride and invested in an outcome when you have no say in the outcome. Most people become fans at an early age, cheering for local teams or their parent's team. Your joy is determined by the owner of the team, the front office he employs to make team decisions, the coaches they hire to create a gameplan, and a roster of players to go out and execute that gameplan in a frenetic environment. The amount of variables that go into a championship team are massive!
Is it arbitrary? Hell yeah. It is irrational, but there’s really nothing like fandom.
Which is why a championship is so incredibly magical. Every major sports league in the US has roughly 30 teams and fandoms, and only one team can win it all in a given year, so all but one fanbase ends the season disappointed. Being able to see your team hoist the trophy over their heads at the end of it all is elation. And when your team has experienced a title drought? Grownups turn back into little kids in celebration.
The outcome is not determined by votes. You know definitively by the scoreboard whether or not your team was the better team or not. Of course there can be debate, but there’s certainty in the outcome; ultimately, one fanbase gets to see their team hold a trophy and raise a banner to the rafters. And Banners fly forever.
There’s also the camaraderie of a fanbase. You can see complete strangers and share a knowing nod or a sly smile or yell out a "Go Knicks!" and get a response because there is a bond. A community. A sense of being involved in and connected to something that is bigger than yourself. It connects regions; local, state, national, or on a global scale (as we’re currently seeing with the World Cup).
For Chalamet, his favorite team had not won a title in his lifetime. In fact, it was 22 years before he was even born. As a Red Sox fan, I can relate. Cubs fans can relate. Those teams went 80+ years between titles. Some fans lived entire, full lives rooting for those teams and never seeing them win it all.
I can remember my life changing as a Boston sports fan when Tom Brady came into my life. I was happy beyond words the first time the Patriots won. Then I got to see the 2004 Red Sox break the Curse, and come back from 3-0 against the hated Yankees in the process. No words. And then the Celtics in 2008, against the hated Lakers, no less!
To get to experience your team winning even one championship is a big deal, especially when you’ve rooted for a team since you were a kid. It is a shared, communal moment that bridges generations.
So paraphrase Jesus Christ, Timothee has chosen the good portion, which I will not take away from him.
And I would never begrudge any fan of any team saying they would prefer to see their team win a championship over recognition of personal excellence, even someone like Chalamet.
Except Yankees fans and Lakers fans. May they never know happiness!