OSCAR NIGHT
Vinay Menon has one surefire prediction: Expect the host to go easy on Hollywood’s elite
Neil Patrick Harris is talented, sweet, charming and kind.
This can only mean he’s doomed to fail as host of the Academy Awards on Sunday (at 8:30 p.m. on ABC and CTV). Oh, he’ll be just fine inside the Dolby Theatre.
Hollywood titans arriving on the red carpet in silk tuxes and bejeweled gowns worth more than some family sedans are thrilled Harris is their emcee. They are safe. On a night devoted to the kind of back-patting that usually results in months of chiropractic therapy, they don’t want a sardonic beast lunging for their throats.
But for the millions of TV viewers, for whom the live telecast is allegedly entertainment, the triple-threat presence of a singing, dancing and smiling Harris raises only one question: Are the Oscars becoming too nice?
In the last decade, hosts have included a star-struck Jon Stewart (2006, 2008); a placid Ellen DeGeneres (2007, 2014); a gracious Hugh Jackman (2009); a droll Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin (2010); a catatonic James Franco and manic Anne Hathaway (2011); a stunningly lame Billy Crystal (2012); and a self-censoring Seth MacFarlane (2013), who was much tamer than most now remember.
These hosts have been united in their congeniality. They’ve taken a call of duty to serve the glitterati, even if that means turning a deaf ear to the riff-raff watching at home who are forced to endure 3.5 hours of bland. It’s as if the academy held a secret meeting after Chris Rock’s controversial hosting gig in 2005 and vowed to never again entrust the microphone to anyone who may use it to bash the Jude Laws of the world.
Rock also annoyed Sean Penn? Wait a minute. Didn’t David Letterman annoy Jack Nicholson in 1995? And let’s not forget about 1988, when Chevy Chase annoyed everyone with his opening line: “Good evening Hollywood phonies!” No, no, no. This just can’t stand. It’s no surprise Oscar jokes now tend to avoid naming names, unless those names can be safely named.
If the Sony hacking scandal is broached on Sunday, don’t expect Harris to needle any high-ranking execs from the powerful studio.
There won’t be any blistering snark about nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence or the appalling allegations against Bill Cosby.
Instead, punch lines are more likely to get chucked at those on the Hollywood periphery: Mama June, Justin Bieber, Donald Sterling, Vanilla Ice, Kim Kardashian.
Hollywood snickers at lesser souls because it can no longer laugh at itself.
In the struggle between “caustic” and “saccharine,” which is how Harris framed it in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel this week, hosts such as Crystal or DeGeneres are beloved by their peers because they always sprinkle the artificial sweetener.
Or they turn their barbs on their own shortcomings, a self-deprecating art pioneered by Bob Hope in the ’40s. Or they duck and generalize, something Johnny Carson mastered as a five-time host: “I see a lot of new faces, especially on the old faces.”
The industry elite who’ve complained after a host “went too far” will argue there’s nothing wrong with nice. After all, this is their special night.
The Oscars are a celebration of excellence, not a roast of personal foibles. The host should be mindful of the jangled nerves tucked behind all of those fake smiles.
This would be reasonable if the Oscars unfolded in private, away from the cameras.
But as a television event — the highest-rated after the Super Bowl each year — the academy should be mindful of just how dreary these lovefests have become.
When Oscar ceremonies start to get fondly remembered for commercials or celebrity selfies, the academy is flirting with irrelevance. And since this gala unfolds during an entire season of back-patting — Critics Choice Awards, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards — do viewers not deserve a bit of tension, a few punches that aren’t pulled, a scrap or two of sandpaper mixed in with the heaps of cotton candy?
Ricky Gervais was widely chastised as a three-time host of the Golden Globes, including in 2011 when he introduced Bruce Willis as “Ashton Kutcher’s dad” and ridiculed countless celebrities and their work: “Everything this year was three-dimensional, except the characters in The Tourist.
I feel bad about that joke. I’m jumping on the bandwagon because I haven’t even seen that movie. Who has?”
But by embracing the caustic, Gervais was telling viewers this was about them and not the phonies. It was mean, yes, but it was also far more entertaining and memorable than just about every Oscar telecast since. For once, a host was brutally honest.
There will be no condemnation of Neil Patrick Harris on Monday morning. Unlike all those times he’s watched the Oscars at home with family and friends, he won’t be cracking wise with an acid tongue.
Instead, he will grin and make everyone in the theatre feel loved. He will be nice because, as the academy has calculated, this is easier than honest and real. vmenon@thestar.ca
As a television event, the academy should be mindful of just how dreary these lovefests have become