Ricky Gervais might have been on to something…
From Joaquin Phoenix – the man who’s fighting climate change by wearing the same tux to all his award shows – raving about the injustices of inseminating cows, to Chris Rock and Steve Martin’s insipid jokes about #OscarsSoWhite, this year’s Oscars was almost intolerable for viewers who haven’t totally bought in to the far-left identity politics currently dominating Hollywood. And it showed in the ratings.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, this year’s Oscars – which some have joked would be the ‘wokest Oscars ever’ after Kevin Hart was fired as host and best picture went to a foreign film (South Korea’s “Parasite”) for the first time – bagged the lowest TV ratings in the history of the storied awards show.
First, the Phoenix clip (which also included a dig on cancel culture before the actor accused all of humanity of harboring an “egocentric worldview.”
Of course, this year’s Oscars was also the first to proceed without a host, since the show fired black comedian Kevin Hart over some ancient vaguely homophobic (by today’s standards) tweets that basically epitomized cancel culture (famous people and comedians being forced to answer for insensitive jokes years or even decades later).
Then again, this isn’t a new trend, as American viewership of award shows has been declining for years (last year’s show ended a four year streak of shrinking viewership). That’s likely for a mix of reasons, including the fact that everybody can just wait until the next day to watch the highlights. Also: Nobody really cares about film anymore in the age of endlessly streaming prestige television.
