What will he say? All eyes and ears are on Chris Rock
What will Chris Rock say?
That’s one of the main questions surrounding the 88th Academy Awards, which have already become engulfed in an international debate over racial diversity, with the Feb. 28 ceremony still more than a month away.
Reginald Hudlin, who is co-producing the telecast on ABC, told “Entertainment Tonight” that Rock, hired last year as host, had blown up his originally planned monologue as the #OscarsSoWhite controversy has raised awareness about the lack of black nominees in major performing categories.
“He and his writing staff locked themselves in a room,” Hudlin said of Rock. “As things got a little provocative and exciting, he said, ‘I’m throwing out the show I wrote and writing a new show.’”
That led to buzz that Rock was planning to lob some scorching one-liners about the debate. Charlotte Rampling, Michael Caine and Ian McKellen are among the stars who have waded into the controversy, and some household names, such as Will Smith and Spike Lee, have said they won’t attend the ceremony. Pressure even built on Rock himself to bow out.
But Rock’s spokesperson dismissed the speculation about the monologue, saying that neither Hudlin “nor anyone else speaks for Chris.”
“Chris has made no decisions about the content of the show. All will be revealed on February 28th,” publicist Leslie Sloane wrote in a statement Monday. An attempt to reach Sloane for elaboration was unsuccessful, and representatives from ABC and Oscar organizers did not respond to a request for comment. Rock has expressed his (relatively moderate) views about Hollywood and diversity in the past. In a 2014 essay for the Hollywood Reporter, he wrote: “It’s a white industry. Just as the NBA is a black industry. I’m not even saying it’s a bad thing. It just is.”
Organizers have yet to announce the writers for this year’s ceremony.
“If anyone can succeed at a highwire act that could either deal with the gravity of race relations in the United States, and using the Oscars as a microcosm of that, Chris Rock can pull that off,” said Tom Nunan, who teaches at the School of Theatre, Film and Television at UCLA.
“Of all the hosts the academy could end up selecting, fully a year out from nominations, the irony they would pick Chris Rock, in a year that is so lily white, is pretty remarkable,” Nunan added.