{"id":71564,"date":"2016-02-28T23:21:30","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T04:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=71564"},"modified":"2016-02-28T23:21:57","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T04:21:57","slug":"71564","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/02\/28\/71564\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Rock brings diversity issue front and centre at Oscars"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"88th<\/a>
88th Academy Awards host, Chris Rock addresses diversity issue at the Oscars. (Photo courtesy of the official Instagram account of Rock<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oscar host Chris Rock didn’t merely acknowledge the elephant in the room. He brought it stage front and centre, where it seemed likely to stay all night.<\/p>\n

From his very first words in a hotly anticipated monologue that deftly blended humour and gravity, Rock addressed the diversity issue rocking this year’s Oscars.<\/p>\n

\u201cI counted at least 15 black people in that montage!\u201d he said of the opening film clips.<\/p>\n

He went on to call the Oscars the \u201cWhite People’s Choice Awards,\u201d and noted that if they had nominated potential hosts, \u201cI wouldn’t have this job. You’d all be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.\u201d He was referring, of course, to the fact that every acting nominee this year was white, a development that led to the OscarsSoWhite backlash.<\/p>\n

In some of his lighter comments, Rock joked about the people who’d urged him to boycott the awards show.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow come it’s only unemployed people that tell you to quit something?\u201d he asked, and also cracked a few barbs at the expense of Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband Will Smith, who opted not to attend the show. Maybe it wasn’t fair that Smith hadn’t been nominated for \u201cConcussion,\u201d he said, but it also wasn’t fair that he earned $20 million for \u201cWild Wild West.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some of his edgier comments, Rock wondered why there hadn’t been protests back in the ’60s, when surely there were years with no black nominees. \u201cWhy? Because we had real things to protest,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he quipped that this year’s in-memoriam package was \u201cjust going to be black people shot by the cops on the way to the movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning more philosophical, he asked: \u201cIs Hollywood racist? You’re damn right Hollywood is racist. But it’s not the racist you’ve grown accustomed to. Hollywood is sorority racist. It’s like, ‘We like you, Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa.\u201d’ And he added: \u201cWe want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities. Not just once. Leo (DiCaprio) gets a great part every year. All you guys get great parts all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The diversity issue wasn’t limited to Rock’s opening monologue. In one of several comic bits sprinkled through the first hour of the show, actress Angela Bassett offered a \u201cBlack History Month Minute\u201d paying tribute to a \u201cblack\u201d actor\u2014Jack Black.<\/p>\n

And in a joke montage, gags were inserted into some of this year’s movies. In one, Rock himself was an astronaut left up on Mars, a la Matt Damon in \u201cThe Martian.\u201d But this time, Jeff Daniels and Kristen Wiig at NASA debated bringing him back and decided not to, since it would cost 2,500 \u201cwhite dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollywood diversity was an issue outside the Dolby Theatre as well. Before the telecast, Rev. Al Sharpton addressed a group of several dozen protesters nearby. He told the group he would organize larger protests if diversity complaints are not addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be the last night of an all-white Oscars,\u201d Sharpton said.<\/p>\n

All 20 actors nominated Sunday are white. Sharpton criticized the Oscars for failing to nominate films such as \u201cStraight Outta Compton,\u201d \u201cCreed\u201d or \u201cConcussion\u201d for any of its top honours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oscar host Chris Rock didn’t merely acknowledge the elephant in the room. He brought it stage front and centre, where …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":71565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,2,106],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-71564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","tag-original","mauthors-jocelyn-noveck","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}