A series of photos that circulated around awards season made the internet roundly do its nut. I will describe them, and you will see how our reactions show that earnestness has gone violently out of style. The first picture accompanied a quote from Jeremy Strong responding to his Oscar nomination. He’d put out a long statement saying this was the “realisation of a lifelong dream” and shared a photo of himself as a kid in 1993, when he spent the night “on cold metal bleachers” outside the Academy Awards to watch the nominees arrive. “I have not lost that feeling of excitement… I have devoted my life to the attempt to do genuine work that would be worthy of this honour.”
The second was an Instagram post where Strong’s Succession co-star Kieran Culkin reacted to his competing nomination with champagne on a balcony in Paris, and the phrase, “Let’s fucking gooooooo.”
OK, then we have Timothée Chalamet’s much-memed acceptance speech for his SAG award. “The truth is,” he said, in a lime green shirt, “I’m really in pursuit of greatness… I want to be one of the greats.”
Then the kicker – a picture went viral of Strong and Chalamet talking seriously at the afterparty. “They’re having a thesaurus-off,” someone commented slyly.
When Culkin won the Oscar over Strong, there seemed to spread a feeling of smugness, a silent, gold-plated sneer – the right Roy had won. Because Culkin’s performance had appeared effortless – in interviews he routinely explained how he didn’t like to rehearse, instead he just turned up on the day and said the lines, no big deal.
This was in vivid contrast to Strong, whose infamous New Yorker profile contained quotes about playing his Succession character like, “To me, the stakes are life and death.” Why does Culkin’s flippancy come off today as charming, while Strong or Chalamet’s sincerity make even their fans recoil? When did earnestness become a crime, and why?
I thought about this when I found myself accidentally browsing weightloss drugs. My Instagram feed is suddenly full of ads for cut-price Ozempic knockoffs, injections that can cure the problem of hunger. They offer, not just a more acceptable body, but a more acceptable way to walk through the world, a chance to live without showing yearning and wanting and needing, or anything effortful at all.
It reminds me of the lure of “quiet luxury” and “stealth wealth”. These beige coats and cream jumpers are valuable and coveted because of the way they’re embedded with codes that show how successful their wearer is without having to do anything as vulgar or grabby as display a logo. Likewise the laser facials and expensive injectables that allow wealthy women to forgo makeup. All are a way to walk through the world without appearing to try. All are tricks to living that define the world today.
A battered car, a “kitchen supper”, “this old thing”, these are the silent signals of privilege – these are the staples of a life that appears to come easily. Often because it does, because this is the life and these are the rules that have been handed down from generation to generation, not just the cash or opportunity, but the language and attitude. To say you want something, to say you really want it, that you want it so much you would camp outside an awards ceremony at night just to be close to it, is to express an uncomfortable vulnerability, and expose yourself as unwhole or worse, low class. And it’s uncomfortable to see it too! To hear Chalamet’s ambition, to see Strong’s childhood desire provokes in us a kind of interior confrontation. We are forced to ask ourselves what we really want, and what we have that hasn’t been earned.
Affected detachment is far easier than being earnest. Nihilism is self-preservation, a kind of daily inoculation against disappointment and fear. Dipping into earnestness, even for a moment, can feel completely mortifying. Dangerous, even. A couple of years ago the New York Times announced we were entering the “Age of Anti-Ambition”, a claim that was reinforced more recently by young women’s dalliances with “marry a rich guy” influencers and the “soft life” promise marketed by trad wives. To strive (especially after the pandemic) seemed grubby and exhausting – far more appealing to simply float.
But here’s what I think. I think the ick we sometimes feel towards those who are openly wanting is misplaced. I think there is room to critique earnestness and ambition, especially when the ambition is simply “success”, an ambiguous blur of awards or cash, because the rewards for such things are almost always empty and unsatisfying. That’s not what we’re seeing with these earnest actors though, these slim men in brave suits using big words. These are people taking their work seriously, yet, in this culture, are risking that work by doing so.
Culkin said he objects, “when actors call themselves ‘storytellers’. Sorry, Jeremy”. Brian Cox said of Strong’s approach to acting, “It’s fucking annoying. Don’t get me going on it.” While I absolutely love everything old Culkin does, while I am in awe of the way Cox can imbue a raw little swearword with infinite pathos, I admire the gritted earnestness of a person who refuses to compromise, who leans into pretension, even if it makes them unlikeable. Because it makes it easier for the rest of us to be honest about our own struggles, and desires, and to show we give a shit. It lets us be hungry again.
