The Oscars are hostless, but they’re not hopeless
It’s been 30 years since the Academy Awards unfolded without a host.
And the last time, in 1989, was hardly a ringing endorsement for not having a host. That hallucinogenic telecast, which started with an end-of-days, 11-minute song-and-dance number that had Rob Lowe and Snow White butchering “Proud Mary” with a lyrical rewrite so cheesy it might as well have been sponsored by Velveeta, slipped into Hollywood lore as a cautionary tale:
The show can’t go on without a host.
This weekend, we’ll find out if that’s still true.
For the first time in a generation, there is no captain steering the S.S. Oscar steamship on Sunday night. It’s like an NFL team with no quarterback or a church service with no pastor or Justin Trudeau with no Gerald Butts.
But this is where the academy now finds itself after Kevin Hart, the travelsized comedian, resigned as host in December amid a scandal over past homophobic tweets. This year’s Oscars is basically a self-driving car.
It will either navigate a new highway or crash into a ditch. Early GPS mapping is not optimistic. The lack of an emcee in 2019 — and the conventional wisdom that con- cludes no host equals no show worth watching — has already triggered doomsday predictions, with recent headlines such as, “The Oscars are going to be an embarrassing disaster — and it’s the Academy’s fault,” “The Oscars can’t seem to get any decision right” and “Can the broken, boring Oscars ever be fixed?”
But the real question is: why do the Oscars need a host?
What insiders fail to appreciate is that, with each passing year, a majority of viewers have not watched a majority of films up for Best Picture, including this year’s The Favourite, Vice or A Star Is Born. Eventually, people will watch them. But as the centre of cinematic consumption shifts from theatres to homes, there is a lag time that is ultimately corrosive to the golden statues.
People used to go to the movies. Now they wait for the movies to come to them.
And this makes hosting the Oscars the most thankless job in entertainment.
These poor Oscar hosts, my God, it’s like they are trying to enliven a spelling
bee for illiterate adults. Go back and read the reviews of recent telecasts and you will realize every host — Jimmy Kimmel, Chris Rock, Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen DeGeneres, Seth MacFarlane — had one thing in common: they could do no right, no matter what they did. If you analyze the feedback from every ceremony this millennium, the host was accused of being “not political enough,” “boring,” “self-indulgent,” “needlessly abrasive,” “sophomoric,” “tiresome,” “lacklustre” and, most often, “just not funny.”
So why even bother with a host?
Presiding over the Oscars is like throwing a dinner party for 500 guests with 500 food allergies: you can’t win. Just ask James Franco and Anne Hathaway. Which might explain why the academy was unable to nail down a replacement for Hart.
Think about that for a minute. This is the most watched award show on the planet.
And nobody wanted to sashay into the spotlight.
I can tell you right now, Dave Chappelle would rather skinny dip in a piranha-filled lagoon than host the Oscars. If scientists brought Bob Hope back to life — a legend who hosted the Academy Awards a record 19 times — he would politely decline a 20th invitation, citing the cultural polarization and media fragmentation.
Though rumours abound of a “secret plan” for Sunday — a hosting entrance by Whoopi Goldberg, say, or Billy Crystal — the sad truth is there is no longer any upside to being the ringleader of the Oscars.
There is only a sliding scale of disappointment.
And that’s precisely why it’s time the academy gets rid of hosts forever.
The interest in Sunday’s broadcast is already higher than it’s been in years. Why? People don’t know what to expect. They yearn for the unknown. And this unpredictability is spiking fascination after decades of blah.
As Adweek recently reported, ABC has sold out its ad inventory for the broadcast, with 30-second spots bringing in up to $2.6 million. Viewers are jazzed to see what might happen because they have no idea what might happen.
So having no host is not a “death sentence,” as some are forecasting for Sunday. If anything, the freedom of not relying on a single voice could be the most liberating thing to ever happen to the Oscars. Every comedian comes with baggage.
Having no comedian at the helm opens a suitcase of creative possibility.
Producers get to go segment by segment with a rotating cast of faces.
Let’s face it, a host is 95 per cent monologue. But after the opening sequence, the host might as well be another presenter. As the night drags on, the host fades into the background. The host becomes an afterthought.
But no host means every moment is a potential surprise.
The sliding scale of disappointment is why it’s time the academy gets rid of hosts forever
No host means anyone can steal the show.
After last year’s telecast, the lowest rated ever, the Academy Awards needs to reinvent. And though they didn’t plan it this way, having no host on Sunday might just prove to be a magic bullet nobody loaded.