There's of course the old adage that news travels fast. Last week The Academy announced that comedian Kevin Hart was scheduled to host this year's upcoming ceremony. It seemed fair enough, given that Hart was a trendy comedian who could draw in that audience that The Academy was clearly going for. However, the news wasn't even hours old when the tides began to turn and suddenly Hart was out due to homophobic comments, leaving the question as to who is hosting up in the air. In what has become one of the messiest years since the inaugural Oscars So White debacle, there's now comment that The Academy will replace Hart with... no one. It's not something that's really happened all that much (and there's a good chance that this will be old news by publication), though it does exemplify the identity crisis that they currently face: who deserves to be at The Academy Awards? Who deserves to win? In 2018, it seems like that question is about more than just personal conduct.
To summarize, Hart was announced as Oscar host last week. He considered it to be a great honor and one of his life's biggest dreams. Within 24 hours however, that was old news. Old Twitter posts emerged where he used homophobic slurs alongside old stand-up bits where he cruelly joked about his son being effeminate. With the controversy predictably coming quick and hard, Hart backed out for fear of taking attention away from The Academy, which has been LGBT friendly. He would later apologize, but by then the man who considered it his lifelong dream to host the ceremony folded quickly to the fear that he would have to apologize for being a homophobe. He claims to have apologized publicly in the past, such as in a Rolling Stone magazine article, but alas that was more acknowledgment of the issue than giving any remorse (see also: his strongly gay panic film Get Hard for further examples of how this is incessant behavior).
It's a footnote in Oscar history not unlike the 2011 debacle with producer Brett Ratner and host Eddie Murphy. Ratner's comments of "Rehearsals are for fags" drew ire quickly and he dropped out, leading Murphy to follow suit. What's bizarre it that that took weeks and time to unfold whereas Hart couldn't even last a day. Given that it was announced the following day that Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh were hosting the Golden Globes, it's only indicative of how much time is running out and how much people are settling in for awards season. Hart was supposed to be this triumphant recognition of trends. After all, The Academy infamously wanted a Best Popular Film category introduced before retracting any mention of it. Everything that has been said clearly suggests that they want to appeal to a wider audience, and ironically it has all hung on the shoulders of Black Panther, which currently is among the biggest films of awards season.
It also doesn't help that The Academy is trying to find ways to condense the show's running time. Talk has been that they will limit the show's running time and cut craft categories to commercial breaks. It's a move that the Tony Awards have done to some success, though it only shows how much more of an identity crisis The Academy is currently in. It's a night to embrace cinema, and it's always notoriously ran long. Sure, this is a noteworthy issue, but it's being handled in a sloppy fashion and it's being seen more as a popularity contest than a recognition of craft (sure, by nature an award is a popularity contest but it still feels like it recognizes something significant within a category). In some ways, having no host would solve that problem, though it would take out a piece of the puzzle that has given the show an identity for years. There's always been concern over how the show would be hosted, even if many criticize the negatives a lot more than the positives. But hey, it would cut down on running time by at least 25-40 minutes.
The Academy is in an identity crisis for sure. In a year that's still up in the air, it's hard to know how things will turn out. With many complaining that The Academy's inability to replace Hart with a woman as cowardice, it does show that this is a move powered by popularity more than quality. Maybe the show will be more efficient without a host, but what will really be the draw besides people accepting awards for three hours on a tightly run ship? It's all a mess, but hopefully things work out. This is a moment that feels like a shift for a new generation of voters, and it will all show in whatever happens with whoever ends up leading the ceremony in a few months. It's hard to say, but what is known is that this fiasco will happen next year again if they don't get those viewers, so let's hope that Black Panther gets a Best Picture nomination for that reason alone.
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