Last week, the Academy of Motion Pictures announced that for the first time in decades that the Oscars would abandon its traditional format of having a celebrity host.
Last week, the Academy of Motion Pictures announced that for the first time in decades that the Oscars would abandon its traditional format of having a celebrity host. The decision was made after comedian Kevin Hart reaffirmed his decision to withdrawal from the nomination while on Ellen DeGeneres’ daily talk show. Which brings us to the topic of this column. Ellen DeGeneres.
Historically, the annual Academy Awards has endured periods of both fallow and flourishment, subject to, among other things, the eminence of movies in a given year. But for the past half-decade, the Oscars’ ratings have withered dramatically. Last year, the overall audience dipped below 30 million for the first time.
It’s imprudent to attribute the annual ceremony’s decline to any one singular impetus; there are several. However, if the Oscars are ever to recover, it is important to address one specific foible. At each Academy Awards ceremony over the past few years, there’s been a giant elephant in the room. Its bottom half is always red, and the top half blue, donning three white stars. It’s the Republican Elephant.
No matter the host, or the subject of films nominated, every Oscars ceremony in recent history has had one common theme: browbeating and haranguing Republicans from an ostensible moral high ground – and you don’t need to look hard for examples.
Just minutes into his opening monologue at last year’s Oscars, host Jimmy Kimmel called President Trump a racist, claiming the first three-fourths of “Get Out” – a thriller about psychopathic white people hypnotizing and enslaving black people – was Trump’s favorite movie.
At this year’s Golden Globes – the precursor to the Oscars – Christian Bale, accepting the best actor award for his portrayal of former Vice President Dick Cheney in the movie “Vice,” thanked Satan (that’s not his father’s name; the actual, Biblical Satan) for “inspiration.”
Movie award ceremonies shouldn’t be subject to the insipid political musings of Jimmy Kimmel or Meryl Streep.
