If the Academy wants an A-list host for the Oscars, good luck
“OSCAR host has become the least wanted job in Hollywood,” The Hollywood Reporter argued in a piece published earlier this week.
Then Kevin Hart took that job. His old, homophobic tweets resurfaced, sparking outrage and, according to Hart, an ultimatum from the Academy: Apologise or step aside.
He initially refused to do the former and eventually bowed out. “I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artistes,” Hart tweeted on Friday morning. “I sincerely apologise to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.”
This all happened within a few days. And Hart’s brief tenure as Oscar host shows the need to properly vet for the high-profile gig, and also how fraught of a job it is in the first place.
It seemed like someone dropped the ball. His tweets were hiding in plain sight, and he had commented on them before. Hart also had some similar jokes in his act, including one about fearing his son is gay.
The Academy has not publicly commented on the fallout and, as of Friday afternoon, had not returned requests for comment.
Not everyone wanted Hart to step down, including GLAAD, whose president Sarah Kate Ellis pointed to his huge following and said “he missed a real opportunity to use his platform and the Oscars stage to build unity and awareness.”
But did Hart even need the Oscars gig to boost his star power? In the last decade, the Philadelphia native has gone from well-known comedian to bona fide movie star and wildly successful comedian who can sell out football stadiums.
In 2011, when his standup documentary earned US$7.7 million at the box office, Hart broadened his fan base after serving as the unofficial host of the MTV Video Music Awards. “It’s a completely different audience for me. Some people didn’t even know who I was,” he told Entertainment Weekly.
The Oscars gig may have been appealing for similar reasons. Over the years, he’s repeatedly said he wanted the gig, and on Tuesday, posted on social media: “This has been a goal on my list for a long time.”
But since the days of repeating hosts like Bob Hope and Billy Crystal, the award hosts have acknowledged how tough of a gig it can be, and few have done it more than a handful of times.
“I don’t know that my family nor my soul could take it,” Neil Patrick Harris told The HuffPost in 2015 when he hosted. “It was fun to check off the list, but for the amount of time spent and the understandable opinionated response, I don’t know that it’s a delightful balance to do every year or even again.”
Ellen DeGeneres received an Emmy nomination for her 2007 turn as Oscar host, but she initially said no when she was offered the gig again in 2014, citing how stressful it was the first time. — WP-Bloomberg