Oscars 2023 | Jimmy Kimmel’s ‘brown’: save the Oscars | The truth

It will be the third time that the late night host ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’, from the ABC network, will be at the controls of the ceremony organized by the Hollywood Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an event that in recent years it has been losing a considerable audience and which was seriously injured by the covid pandemic in 2021, with a gala followed by only 10.4 million viewers. It was his lowest point and it had to do, without a doubt, with a fairly flat year in terms of film offerings and, perhaps, due to the absence of a presenter. By then, the gala had already been without a presenter for three years, something that had not happened since 1998.

It all started in December 2018, when comedian Kevin Hart announced that he would be in charge of hosting the 2019 gala. Two days later, the actor and comedian from Philadelphia resigned after the controversy sparked by some jokes and homophobic comments posted on his Twitter account. between 2009 and 2011. And then the problems for the Academy began. A few months after the ceremony, it was being impossible for them to find someone to take charge of it and they began to consider the possibility that there would not be a presenter to use. It was the trend that followed in 2019, 2020 and 2021, until last year the actresses and comedians Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes took over something that in recent years has been seen as ‘brown’.

Seth MacFarlane, creator of series like ‘Family Guy’ and movies like ‘Ted’, gave ‘Entertainment Weekly’ the key to what could be happening. “It’s an old-fashioned format, as current as the variety shows of the fifties. There’s always an effort to make it interesting for viewers who are used to a very different type of entertainment in the modern age, but it’s very complicated. So it is not an easy job and I am not surprised that they have difficulties finding candidates, “he said in 2019, after Hart’s resignation. MacFarlane was responsible in 2013 for conducting a gala in which there were even jokes at the expense of Harvey Weinstein, four years before #MeToo, but his somewhat thicker and more scathing humor was not liked by everyone, although he reached 40, 3 million viewers, the only one who has achieved it in the last decade along with Ellen DeGeneres, who gathered 43.7 million viewers in 2014. «Look, the whole world has their eyes on you. And when you do something that is in the center of attention, you are going to receive a lot of opinions from a lot of people. I’m trying to think of the last time I read an Oscar review the next day that everyone was excited about… and it’s been a long time,” he said in the same interview with ‘Entertainment Weekly’.

Surprisingly, and despite the absence of presenters and soul, according to a large part of television critics, the 2019 gala, which crowned ‘Green Book’, Peter Farrelly’s film, as best film, improved the audience of the previous one ceremony, reaching 29.6 million viewers, compared to the 26.5 million that Jimmy Kimmel himself aroused in 2018 in his second attempt. However, the number of viewers fell again in 2020. 23.6 million viewers watched that gala in which the South Korean Bong Joon-ho made history by winning the Oscar for best film for ‘Parasites’. Last year, the gala improved its data, reaching 16.6 million viewers, but still below the 20 million and 30 million that, ABC considers, a gala of these characteristics should report to them at least. Presented, as we’ve already said, by Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes, Will Smith’s slap to Chris Rock certainly livened things up. Oscar for best actor for ‘The Williams Method’, the actor and rapper was banned and will not be able to attend a ceremony in ten years.

Kimmel has already made it clear that the incident will be addressed in some way at the ceremony. Recently interviewed by ‘Entertainment Weekly’, he stated that “it is still shocking that that happened. On top of that, something like this happening at the Oscars makes it magnify a million times. It is something that everyone regrets and that we will end up getting over. And he likens the incident to the one in 1974, when a naked man burst onto the stage running from behind David Niven. “We’ll remember it the same way: as a weird moment that we’ve all talked about and hopefully learn from.” Additionally, he praises Rock’s composure: “Getting slapped and keeping your cool is something Chris should be proud of.”

Kimmel did not do badly in 2017, when he added 32.9 million viewers, the year in which the best film statuette went to ‘Moonlight’, after a controversial final installment. Precisely, a year earlier, with Chris Rock as master of ceremonies, the gala had 34.4 million viewers, the year before, with Neil Patrick Harris, 3.7 million, and in 2012, with Billy Crystal, 39.3 million. of viewers. But none executed a musical number as daring and funny as the one carried out by Hugh Jackman in 2009, the year in which the crisis took the stage of the Dolby Theater. The Australian attracted 36.3 million viewers.