Non Threatening Boys*: The Downfall of the Dreamboat Actor

"In an industry still clinging to the same star-making formulas, audiences are getting tired of the dreamboat schtick."

Words: Izzy Bilkus

When a celebrity falls from grace, it’s pretty easy for the masses to band together to get them cancelled. Maybe a Real Housewife gets arrested, a footballer has an affair, or a nepo baby does something annoyingly out of touch online. These are all deemed to be offences with no room for redemption. You mess up, you’re forever socially branded as an idiot, evil, or cringe.

But there’s a specific genre of white male celebrity that manages to misbehave or disappoint and still continue to book major jobs and take the spotlight. I’m talking about the dreamboat actor: young, handsome, mysterious. He might put a foot wrong sometimes, but we ignore it because he’s just so gorgeous! Recently, however, attitudes amongst fans are changing. In an industry still clinging to the same star-making formulas, audiences are getting tired of the dreamboat schtick, and are moving their loyalties elsewhere.

When the whole media landscape is built by and for these men, it’s even more interesting when they start to flop, and it raises questions about the cult of celebrity, masculinity and audience fatigue. So what better subjects to study this with than what I’ve coined The Horny Trinity: Timothée Chalamet, Paul Mescal and Jacob Elordi. Over the past year these once bulletproof heartthrobs have caused big shifts in fan sentiment.

Let’s start with Timmy. Most of us will have been hooked on him since Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird, where his elusive boy-next-door persona charmed us all and genuinely had us rooting for his success, which grew to the point where he was untouchable. Just a few years ago he was Hollywood’s go-to guy, but now fans are souring on him and are questioning whether he’s become too big-headed.

His recent Marty Supreme press tour sparked controversy after he bragged on stage, gunning for an Oscar: “It’s been like seven, eight years that I feel like I’ve been handing in really, really committed top-of-the-line performances”. Careful now, Timmy.

Online discourse quickly kicked off about the now-bulging ego of cinema’s once indie darling. He’s a great actor of course, but with great acting comes great responsibility, lest you end up down the same rabbit hole as Hollywood’s earlier golden boys who are now conservative clichés. As one TikTok creator put it: “He’s not the next Leonardo DiCaprio – he’s the next Tom Cruise.” There’s also been widespread commentary on his affinity with Black culture, with critics claiming that he deliberately leaned into a meme-ready, hip-hop adjacent persona during the Marty Supreme rollout to win over audiences, only to pivot back to classic prestige actor rhetoric when it suits. Even journalists agreed that these antics weren’t fooling anyone. The discourse has shifted from “Protect Timmy at all costs!” to “Have we had enough of Timmy?”, and it seems his increasingly calculated media presence has revealed a conventional male ego that fans never thought would rear its head.

If Timmy’s problem is too much presence, then Paul Mescal’s is not quite enough. Despite his meteoric rise since starring in Normal People, Mescal’s career has prompted questions about stagnation. He’s consistently cast in major roles, but is often outshined by his castmates, like Daisy Edgar-Jones and most recently Jessie Buckley in Hamnet. “Paul Mescal was just a lad,” authors and critic duo The White Pube posted about his role in Chloé Zhao’s drama. “It’s like they said hey do you wanna go of this film and he put his ciggy down and went, yeah go on then.” Is the Irish charm not cutting it anymore?

When placed beside (let’s be honest) stronger contemporaries like Josh O’Connor or Jack O’Connell, the gap becomes even more obvious. The issue with Mescal isn’t necessarily that he’s a flop – it’s that he’s fine. And that’s not enough when you’re being sold as a generational talent. The pocket of social media I’m on seems to be in agreement: The Paul Mescal thing isn’t working anymore. Maybe it’s another case of overexposure, maybe the nepo-baby-ineptitude-curse of his partner Gracie Abrams is rubbing off on him, but that’s a deep dive for another time.

‘Jacob Elordi controversy’ wasn’t something I expected to be Googling any time soon. After a wealth of recent success, the actor has just hit his first cultural speedbump with his casting controversy in Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”. A white Australian playing Heathcliff – literature’s most famous explicitly racialised character, whose narrative is bound up in being tormented by white English society – was not well received by fans of both the novel and the actor alike. Audiences took to socials to criticise Elordi for not taking a strong enough stance against the whitewashing of the character, particularly compared to how other stars have handled similar situations, like Odessa A’zion – another white actor – who recently stepped down from a role in the upcoming A24 film Deep Cuts after learning it was intended for a Mexican woman. The consensus was that if it was such an obvious decision for A’zion, why couldn’t Elordi have done the same?

So just how much are we willing to tolerate? We’re in an age of cinema where the same lineup of actors is being regurgitated in every blockbuster, so it’s only natural that fans are now asking for more, and are outraged by less. The dreamboat fantasy has actually been wobbling for decades. For every Pitt, Cruise and Brando who clung to mystique despite being deeply problematic, there have been others who have surpassed them. Robert Pattinson escaped heartthrob limbo by becoming wonderfully weird, relinquishing control of his image instead of trying to polish it. Matthew McConaughey literally branded a career pivot – the McConaissance – by abandoning his rom-com charm and rebuilding credibility film by film. Stardom used to promise endless allure, but contemporary spectatorship demands more self-awareness and humility.

Admiration isn’t guaranteed anymore, and all these flare-ups from Hollywood’s current faves point to something bigger: an audience no longer satisfied with passive male celebrity and a particular kind of male ego that assumes desirability is eternal. Maybe we’re finally snapping out of the spell.

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Non Threatening Boys* is Polyester’s platform for exploring all things masculine. To read more of our work, visit our Dollhouse platform, and subscribe to get Non Threatening Boys* directly to your inbox every other week.