Attempts to create additional excitement backfire on ceremony

From proposed new category to host controversy, chaos prevailed

As usual, it comes down to the tweets. The unearthed, the ignorant, the furious, the defensive. Some in tandem, others in opposition. Tweets on tweets on tweets.

This steady stream has shaped the upcoming Oscars ceremony since late last summer, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its first of several contentious plans to buck tradition. Each one met with pushback on social media, after which the academy would quickly reverse course. The 91st Academy Awards would feature a new category, and then it wouldn’t. A handful of awards wouldn’t be broadcast live, and then they would be. The ceremony would have a host, and then it wouldn’t, and then maybe it would, and then it certainly wouldn’t.

The whole shebang stems from the academy’s desire to draw in more viewers. Declining viewership has displeased broadcaster ABC for some time now, and last year’s nearly four-hour ceremony wound up being the least-watched Oscars in history. Academy president John Bailey and chief executive Dawn Hudson would like to keep the awards “relevant in a changing world,” as they wrote in an email to members last summer. The academy’s tweeting critics would like the Oscars to maintain their stature.

Those following the resulting wishy-washiness might like to take a nap.

The ordinary lead-up to each year’s ceremony is enough to handle as it is. Narratives begin to be spun in late fall, the unofficial start of Oscar season: Bradley Cooper was the one person out of a hundred who believed in Lady Gaga, she said to anyone who would listen. And did you catch a glimpse of those fake teeth Rami Malek wore? Once told in earnest, the oft-repeated stories grow tired by the tail end of February.

But this year, the academy’s messy attempts to modernize the Oscars ceremony contributed an overarching narrative to the heap – and early on. Back in August, Bailey and Hudson announced a new category honoring “Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film,” coded language for the sort of blockbuster that doesn’t receive much critical acclaim but that, if nominated, could draw new viewers to the telecast. The backlash was swift: Were certain acclaimed blockbusters, such as the record-breaking superhero flick “Black Panther,” not worthy of best picture nods because of genre politics? And what exactly is considered “popular”?

The academy reacted in September by bidding adieu to the category – for now, anyway – and switched gears to focus on limiting the telecast to three hours.

But another decision blew up first.

Kevin Hart announced that his dreams of hosting the Oscars had come true in early December, mere hours after the Hollywood Reporter described the gig as “the least wanted job in Hollywood.” And just as quickly, in what has become par for the course with high-profile people in the Twitter age, his old tweets wound up under the microscope. In 2011, he wrote that if he encountered his son playing with a dollhouse, he would break it over the child’s head because “that’s gay.” The comedian also used homophobic slurs in tweets from two years earlier.

Within days, Hart deleted the tweets and announced that he would step down from hosting the Oscars. He visited Ellen DeGeneres’ show in January to chat about a new movie but, as one does, wound up venting to her about how incredibly frustrating it was for him to apologize for something he said he’d already apologized for a bunch. It turned out Ellen had already called up her pals at the academy and advocated for him to be named host once again, and he seemed to reconsider. The defensive press tour chugged along, until Hart finally told Stephen Colbert he was done for good: “That’s it.”

That truly was it, and so the ceremony officially lacked a host. But the academy left the matter of replacing Hart up in the air as it hurried to put out another fire over late January reports that only two of the five Oscar-nominated original songs would be performed live during the telecast: Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “All the Stars” from “Black Panther,” along with Gaga and Cooper’s “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born.” But what about “The Place Where Lost Things Go,” from “Mary Poppins Returns,” or “I’ll Fight” from the Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary?

Would someone please stand up for “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”?

Apparently, a fellow nominee did. The academy announced just days later that other nominated songs would indeed be performed live during the telecast, a development Deadline attributed to Oscars savior Lady Gaga – or her representatives, at least – threatening to drop out of performing altogether if “a change wasn’t made.” (Though, by choice, Lamar and SZA won’t be performing.) Finally, a moment of relief. But just one.

After more drama – i.e. the academy’s soon-to-be rejected plan to have “higher wattage” stars present the acting awards in lieu of the traditional trotting out of last year’s winners – the academy and ABC returned to their dream of letting East Coasters get to bed at a decent hour.

ABC entertainment chief Karey Burke brought the three-hour limit up on Feb. 5 when she confirmed at a press event that the ceremony wouldn’t have a host after all. There was a “messiness behind the Kevin Hart situation,” she said, so the ceremony’s producers decided to “go back to having the presenters and the movies be the stars.” Plus, according to Burke and the show’s producers, no host is one way to keep the ceremony under three hours.

About a week later, the academy announced another change: presenting certain awards during commercial breaks, and then airing edited versions of the speeches during the live telecast. The cinematography, editing, live-action short and makeup and hairstyling categories got the boot.

This announcement incurred the most fiery – and most star power-fueled –wrath yet. Big names like Brad Pitt, Emma Stone and Martin Scorsese joined best director front-runner Alfonso Cuarón, reigning best director Guillermo del Toro and three-time best cinematography winner Emmanuel Lubezki in signing an open letter urging the academy to reverse its decision.

“When the recognition of those responsible for the creation of outstanding cinema is being diminished by the very institution whose purpose it is to protect it, then we are no longer upholding the spirit of the Academy’s promise to celebrate film as a collaborative art form,” the Feb. 13 letter stated.

The academy pulled the ol’ switcheroo once again and issued a statement two days later that read, “All Academy Awards will be presented without edits, in our traditional format.” And so, after much ado, Sunday’s ceremony will likely look like a host-less version of those past.

But the drama might not end here, given the controversy certain best picture nominees have drummed up throughout the past few months. Should the polarizing “Green Book” win, get ready for a rehash of the argument over the way the film depicts race. Should “Bohemian Rhapsody” win, this will be remembered as the year the industry’s highest honor went to a film largely directed by a man accused multiple times of sexual assault. (That man, Bryan Singer, denies the claims.)

No matter what happens that fateful night, prepare for the tweets.