Oscars 2016: Chris Rock Nails It –Watch the Funny, Biting Monologue
Chris Rock hosts the 88th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
It was worth the wait.
Chris Rock confidently walked onstage at the 88th Academy Awards and delivered a topical, funny, biting, controversial and even philosophical monologue in response to an awards season dominated not by talk of movies, but of a simple hashtag.
Of course he was funny, opening by calling the diversity-challenged Oscars “the white People’s Choice Awards” and dryly remarking on the number of black actors in the opening montage of nominated films.
He admitted he felt pressure to drop out as host in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite social media protests and boycotts.
“I thought about quitting. I thought about it really hard,” Rock said. “But I realized they’re going to have the Oscars anyway. They’re not going to cancel the Oscars because I quit. And the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart.”
And Hart wasn’t the only target of a well-timed Rock punchline. He praised Paul Giamatti as “the greatest actor in the world,” because he went from hating black people in 12 Years a Slave to “crying at Eazy-E’s funeral” in Straight Outta Compton. “Now that’s range. Ben Affleck can’t do that.”
But one his most acerbic jabs (and biggest laughs) was reserved for actress Jada Pinkett Smith and her boycott of the awards over lack of diversity.
“Jada got mad. Jada said she’s not coming. I’m like, isn’t she on a TV show? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties,” said Rock. “I wasn’t invited.”
Sure Hollywood is racist, Rock said, “but it ain’t the racist that you’ve grown accustomed to.” It’s more like the catty exclusion of a college sorority. “We like you Rhonda — but you’re not a Kappa.”
The show’s producers wisely gave Rock room for his opening monologue, which went longer than usual for an Oscar host. It felt like the comic was taking his time, not wanting to rush jokes or messages like: “We want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities. That’s it. And not just once.”
Rock made edgy jokes that included references to lynching, remarking the reason diversity protests weren’t front of mind in decades past was “because we had real things to protest at the time.”
The glittering audience was with him for almost all of it, although his most stinging joke — how the In Memoriam reel this year would be “black people who were shot by the cops on the way to the movies” — netted some folded arms.
Rock didn’t care. “Yes I said it!” he crowed.
The stakes were far higher than Rock’s first time hosting in 2005, when there were four black nominees — “kind of like the Def Oscar Jam tonight,” he said then — taking swipes at Hollywood phoniness and George W. Bush. It all seemed almost quaint compared to the topics Rock tackled Sunday night.
Rock only seemed to flag with his final jokes, where he took on the sexist banality of red carpet fashion questions aimed at actresses and the #AskHerMore hashtag.
“Everything’s not sexism, everything’s not racism,” Rock said. Nobody asks men who designed their outfits for a reason; they’re all dressed the same.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has promised change, and conversations around diversity have been impossible to ignore. Will Oscar 2017 be more inclusive? And who will host?
Don’t be surprised to see Rock on the Dolby Theatre stage. As he quipped after a commercial break Sunday night: “Hi, we’re black.”
https://youtu.be/tOj2ZZyYBo8
It was worth the wait.
Of course he was funny, opening by calling the diversity-challenged Oscars “the white People’s Choice Awards” and dryly remarking on the number of black actors in the opening montage of nominated films.
He admitted he felt pressure to drop out as host in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite social media protests and boycotts.
“I thought about quitting. I thought about it really hard,” Rock said. “But I realized they’re going to have the Oscars anyway. They’re not going to cancel the Oscars because I quit. And the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart.”
And Hart wasn’t the only target of a well-timed Rock punchline. He praised Paul Giamatti as “the greatest actor in the world,” because he went from hating black people in 12 Years a Slave to “crying at Eazy-E’s funeral” in Straight Outta Compton. “Now that’s range. Ben Affleck can’t do that.”
But one his most acerbic jabs (and biggest laughs) was reserved for actress Jada Pinkett Smith and her boycott of the awards over lack of diversity.
“Jada got mad. Jada said she’s not coming. I’m like, isn’t she on a TV show? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties,” said Rock. “I wasn’t invited.”
Sure Hollywood is racist, Rock said, “but it ain’t the racist that you’ve grown accustomed to.” It’s more like the catty exclusion of a college sorority. “We like you Rhonda — but you’re not a Kappa.”
The show’s producers wisely gave Rock room for his opening monologue, which went longer than usual for an Oscar host. It felt like the comic was taking his time, not wanting to rush jokes or messages like: “We want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities. That’s it. And not just once.”
Rock made edgy jokes that included references to lynching, remarking the reason diversity protests weren’t front of mind in decades past was “because we had real things to protest at the time.”
The glittering audience was with him for almost all of it, although his most stinging joke — how the In Memoriam reel this year would be “black people who were shot by the cops on the way to the movies” — netted some folded arms.
Rock didn’t care. “Yes I said it!” he crowed.
The stakes were far higher than Rock’s first time hosting in 2005, when there were four black nominees — “kind of like the Def Oscar Jam tonight,” he said then — taking swipes at Hollywood phoniness and George W. Bush. It all seemed almost quaint compared to the topics Rock tackled Sunday night.
Rock only seemed to flag with his final jokes, where he took on the sexist banality of red carpet fashion questions aimed at actresses and the #AskHerMore hashtag.
“Everything’s not sexism, everything’s not racism,” Rock said. Nobody asks men who designed their outfits for a reason; they’re all dressed the same.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has promised change, and conversations around diversity have been impossible to ignore. Will Oscar 2017 be more inclusive? And who will host?
Don’t be surprised to see Rock on the Dolby Theatre stage. As he quipped after a commercial break Sunday night: “Hi, we’re black.”
https://youtu.be/tOj2ZZyYBo8