I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

IN THE NEWS: WILL CHRIS "ROCK" THE OSCARS?

Sorry, I'm just not buying the controversy over Chris Rock's comments about the Oscar ceremony.

From Drudge:

"Veteran members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have grown concerned over the choice of Chris Rock as host of this month's awards show, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Concern deepened after Rock claimed only gays watch the Oscars!

"I never watched the Oscars. Come on, it's a fashion show," Rock recently declared.

"What straight black man sits there and watches the Oscars? Show me one!"

Rock added: "Awards for art are f---ing idiotic."

MORE

Academy members have privately called for Chris Rock to be removed as host, sources claim, fearing Rock may "tarnish" the reputation of the Academy.

"Simply put, this is a disgrace," one veteran Hollywood mogul, who asked not to be identified, said from Los Angeles.

"This guy is out there saying 'awards for art are f---ing idiotic' and he is hosting the show produced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? I guess the joke is on us!""

This controversy feels completely manufactured, too contrived and "phoney-baloney, plastic banana, good times rock-and-roll" to be believable. They're trying to create an illusion of tension between the ceremony, seen as being (allegedly) stuffy and traditional, and the host, Chris Rock, seen as "fresh", "unpredictable", "uncompromising", "off the cuff", "in your face", and yada, yada, yada to maximize ratings. I'm not saying that I think that Chris Rock and Oscar producer Gil Cates explicitly conspired and scripted everything in advance in some smoke-filled room in that city-sized bunker the conspiracy theory wackos believe the "New World Order" built under Denver International Airport, just that Gil Cates is a very smart man and knew precisely that Chris Rock is the sort of guy who enjoys taking shots at the establishment, and, since the Academy Awards are very much an "Establisment" ceremony, by giving Rock the honour of hosting, Rock would indeed "shoot his mouth off" against the stuffy traditional image of the ceremony, so that he won't appear too "Establishment" by hosting.

Gil Cates and Chris Rock, or at least their public personas, live in kind of a cartoon world of celebritydom where image is everything and a larger-than-life personality is essential to keep in the public eye and the entertainment headlines. I believe what Rock's saying against the Oscars with about the same amount of credulity as I afford to a "bad guy" professional wrestler talking trash against his "good guy" opponent just before they climb in the ring. In other words, it's just an act; don't take it at face value. It's all in good fun. The show will go on as usual with Rock as host. The Oscars are in no way tarnished by Chris Rock's association with them.

I'm still not sure what kind of host he will make, but, eh, at least he's gotta be better than Whoopi Goldberg. I probably won't sit through the whole thing and will instead switch back-and-forth between channels, but the only one I ever did sit completely through was when David Letterman was host (and I still think, contrary to popular opinion, Letterman's performance as host was terrific.) I'm certainly going to watch more than I did last year, when I was outta there as soon as the Best Animated Feature award was announced as I'm not a Lord of the Ring fan and had no desire to see Return of the King sweep (which was pretty much a foregone conclusion).

Drudge is also trying to outrage pro-lifers against Rock by highlighting an abortion joke Rock made:

"Abortion, it's beautiful, it's beautiful abortion is legal. I love going to an abortion rally to pick up women, cause you know they are fucking."

Eh, I like Matt Drudge and I am one of the minority of Canadians who will openly admit to being pro-life on the abortion issue, with a handful of rare exceptions, but it's hard for me to be offended by that when you take into account the fact that Chris Rock is going out of his way to equally offend both sides of the abortion debate in just a few words, considering so many pro-choicers view abortion as a means of female empowerment but Chris Rock, if you take his words there at face value as being what he actually thinks (which I don't), is coming across as being extremely anti-feminist, in effect calling the women who get abortions "sluts".

If you ask me, the real scandal regarding the Oscars is how they moved them from March to February, taking away a whole Sunday night's worth of sweeps month programming when we've already lost another sweeps Sunday night to the Super Bowl, which has gone from January to February. So we only get two original episodes of King of the Hill this month...

posted by Steve Brandon @ 10:47 PM