The Chris Moeller Archives

Well done, Seth: My thoughts on the Oscars

When you hire Seth MacFarlane, you kind of need to expect a certain level of smarminess, right? Either you like Family Guy/American Dad/The Cleveland Show/Ted, or you don't.

I read a number of articles online today describing how misogynist MacFarlane was as host. The critics' essays were all similar in form-- beginning with the author's claim that he or she can take a joke, and then accusing the voice behind Stewie Griffin of being everything that's wrong with chauvinist Hollywood. Reading each review, I couldn't help but think to myself: wow, this person is dead on-- they can't take a joke. It's as if they're all miffed that the beautiful people, men and women, all dolled themselves up for the night to pay tribute to our National Celebrity State, and then TV Guy had to go pee on the whole thing.

Troy Patterson at Slate liked it. Here's his review. How could you not enjoy a telecast that featured a gay men's chorus backing the host on a fresh new ditty entitled "We Saw Your Boobs," an Oscar-winning actress taking a nose dive on stage during the biggest moment of her career, two great wins for the CM Blog Movie of the Year (Django Unchained), and Barbra Streisand enlivening the Dead Actor Montage with a salute to Marvin Hamlisch. The highlight of the latter was Streisand singing The Way We Were with the line "If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me, would we?" then answering her own question in a whisper, "Of course we would." It was my favorite moment associated with that song since this scene in "Naked Gun".

MacFarlane, however, was about the only scripted part of the show I liked. No other presenters were remotely funny. The supposed theme, something along the lines of "saluting the modern movie musical" had a block in the middle that was a 20-minute waste of time. The telecast felt more like the Tonys in parts, and that's not a compliment. For almost 10 minutes, we watched a salute to Chicago, a movie incorrectly introduced as enjoying its 10th anniversary this year (it's actually 11), and that nobody in Hollywood has mentioned in a studio meeting, or even a cocktail party, since 2006. What'll it be next year? A salute to inspirational films starring Seabiscuit. The horse could come out right there on stage. (This is a good idea actually.) The least that Queen Latifah could have done to spice up the Chicago segment would be to have come out as a lesbian right there on stage, like Jodie Foster did last month. This was the last chance for this year. Awards season is over.

I'm glad that Les Miserables didn't win Best Picture. I shutter to think we would have had to watch their cast reunite on stage 11 years from now. I must tell you I have no plans to ever see that movie. Watching Anne Hathaway emote in a 20-second musical clip is long enough, and if his Oscar night performance tells us anything, Russell Crowe did for that picture what Lee Marvin once did for Paint Your Wagon.

Speaking of both MacFarlane and Hathaway, here is my list of the top Oscar hosts in the modern era:
1) Chris Rock, 2) Seth MacFarlane, 3) David Letterman, 4) Steve Martin, 5) Young Billy Crystal, 6) Jon Stewart, 7) Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, 8) Ellen DeGeneres, 9) Whoopi Goldberg, 10) Old Billy Crystal, 11) Hugh Jackman, and 12) Anne Hathaway and James Franco.

Final upside: the increased visibility of MacFarlane should mean even more episodes of Family Guy on TBS and Adult Swim. Fifty a week is not quite enough.

posted by CM @ 7:38 PM