If Timothée Chalamet is to be believed, no one cares about ballet or opera.

He’s right: cinema does draw a bigger crowd than both ballet and opera combined.

However, simply claiming that “no one cares” disregards that there are people who do care about these art forms, and care deeply.

But Chalamet does not care about the passion of a handful of consumers. What he wants is for people to go see his movies, to want to see his movies. In a different interview held with GMA, held earlier than the now infamous interview with Vanity Fair, he mentioned how he doesn’t want to “beg people”. Instead, he wants to give the people what they want. Yes, there are those who want to see ballet or listen to opera. But the audience is not large enough to provide these art forms with economic certainty, unlike the Hollywood movies in which Chalamet stars. As long as the general public is willing to pay to go to the movies, but not to go to ballet or opera, it seems logical to assume that the public – again, at large – does indeed want to go to the movies. This is why Hollywood can exist with significantly less government support compared to art forms like ballet or opera.

And, this is why Chalamet prefers Hollywood cinema over ballet or opera: because people care enough to spend their hard-earned money on it. Because it is more popular. Is that so bad? I certainly don’t think so.

It’s not like ballet or opera are the only art forms with passionate fans: no doubt cinema has passionate fans as well, probably even more. It would only make sense that the larger the amount of passionate fans, the bigger the audience. I don’t believe ballet or opera, or any non-commercial art for that matter, has a certain magic ingredient that turns audience members into die-hard fans just like that. At least not in a statistically significant way. I am open to being proven wrong, though.

Here’s my hot take: what is popular is more valuable (dare I say better?) than what is not.

The reasoning behind this statement is simple. 1) People value things. 2) What people value matters equally. No preference is inherently more or less legitimate than any other. From which it follows that 3) the more people value something, the more valuable it becomes to ‘The People’.

You could argue against this. Yes, people are equal, but the value they ascribe to things is not. Two people can pay the same amount of money to go see the same movie, but for one person it ended up being a waste of time and money, while for the other it was a life-changing experience.

While it is certainly true to claim this, I believe it is reasonable to assume that the variation between the amount of value people ascribe to certain things is limited. Furthermore, as I said before, there is no reason to believe that, in general, one art form has an audience that values it significantly more than another art form would. The average opera-goer does not have a higher level of enjoyment per euro spent than the average movie-goer.

And this is why I conclude that what is popular is more valuable to the general public than that which is not. (A part of me wants to argue that it is ‘better’ in a general sense, because it is more democratic, but that might push it too far.)

However, this does not mean that only popular art forms have a right to exist! More niche art forms with a smaller fan base can, and should, be supported. In fact, culture and the arts are not supported enough by governments. Just take a look at the amount of millions the Belgian government has wasted: around 50 million euros on anti-drone systems (in a legally dubious way, no less).

I believe that all cultures and all types of art forms should be supported equally. After all, why should ballet, opera, orchestras, etc. get subsidized over other, more marginal, ‘lower’ art forms? Why should the many pay for the enjoyment of the few?

To conclude, let’s respond to the titular question. What is it that keeps an art form alive? Money or passion? It is both: passion is enjoyment is value is money. If you’re passionate about something, if you enjoy it, you value it, and if you value something, you’re willing to spend money on it. But this is not entirely true. Yes, a lot of art forms require money in order to be performed. But not all, and certainly not always. Just look around. There is a staggering amount of amateur art, niche art forms, and experimental artists that keep going without earning or spending so much as a nickel. So what really keeps an art form going? It’s passion all the way down.

This piece was originally published in Issue 1 of the print edition of Ordinary Matters magazine.