Who Will Host the Oscars?
by EG
The Academy Awards doesn't want a host for its annual broadcast who is politically outspoken, and that kind of person is very hard to find in our current divisive era. That means that the show still doesn't have a host, and it's only a few weeks away. Read on for details.
As the holiday break comes to an end and Hollywood's denizens stagger back to their offices, it is dawning on many that the Academy still has not found someone to host the 91st Oscars on Feb. 24 — just 53 days from now.
The Academy thought it solved this problem back on Dec. 4, when it announced that Kevin Hart would do the honors. But Hart withdrew just two days later amid an outcry over homophobic tweets that he had posted years earlier and his initial reluctance to apologize for them. Since then, Donna Gigliotti, who is producing the telecast for the first time, has been hunkered down in closely-guarded conversations with Academy CEO Dawn Hudson and president John Bailey.
Sources within the Academy's 300-person staff and 54-person board of governors have told The Hollywood Reporter that they have no idea how things are progressing, but they are growing concerned as Hollywood's biggest night rapidly approaches. Indeed, not since Jon Stewart was announced as the host of the 78th Oscars on Jan. 5, 2006, and only once before that in the 21st century, when Whoopi Goldberg was announced as the host of the 74th on Jan. 7, 2002, has the search for a host extended into the calendar year of the show itself.
What is known is what the Academy and ABC, which broadcasts the Oscars, do not want. They do not want someone who is socially pisive (especially after the Hart debacle), having concluded that politically-outspoken hosts have contributed to the show's ratings declines in recent years; and they do not want someone who primarily appeals to older viewers, who are likely to watch the show regardless of who hosts.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.
Who do you think should host the Oscars? Let us know in the comments below.