Hosting the Oscars is the toughest gig going. The ghosts of the best hosts of Oscars past haunt each person who braves the mission.
Before I go any further, I want to state upfront: I think Seth MacFarlane is one of the wittiest entertainers out there. His Family Guy is always loaded with sick, twisted humour that is politically incorrect but, most importantly, usually very funny.
I would not say the same for his interviews though.
What one could predict though is that Seth will always show up well dressed, charming, and easy on the eyes.
But it is his interviews that foreshadowed his performance at the Oscars. MacFarlane himself told CNN prior that "I'm the wrong guy" to host the Academy Awards.
His hour with Piers Morgan was even more telling. An intelligent, thoughtful, interesting man, but this guy is not a laugh-a-minute. He's much more intriguing and engaging than that.
I think most people expected a life-sized adult Stewie Griffin: an equal-opportunity offender who gets away with murder because the barbs come from someone cute and cuddly. (Stewie is a one-year-old, after all!)
I know I did. I so looked forward to the Oscars this year as I did not care for Billy Crystal's back to the '90s crusty return in '12.
MacFarlane's best moments were his direct hits like when he opened with his "mission" was to make Tommy Lee Jones smile. That, and Jones' reaction, was funny. As was his hit on Jody Foster's desire for privacy as she came out to a billion people at the Golden Globes. Even so, I got the feeling the host watched more award programs than he did the movies of 2012 themselves.
The Oscars this year did experience a spike in ratings but the true test of success is not just ratings. If that were the case, Geraldo Rivera's mega ratings for finding nothing in his two-hour special "The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults" back in '86 would have revived his respectability. In fact, the term "Al Capone's vault" has become slang for a heavily hyped event with disappointing results.
So what did we find in Seth MacFarlane's vault? A boob song, a gay chorus to help deliver it, Captain Kirk's cue-carded rescue, non-stop comments on how women looked, dieted (or not -- see the Adele joke), stripped, when they're old enough to bang George Clooney or at the right place (Jack Nicholson's). Heck, I cringed most of all when he introduced Salma Hayek by suggesting it doesn't matter if we can understand her when she looks that good.
Now I'm so politically incorrect it's not funny but I found all that, swallowed whole, a bit icky. It seemed a bit lopsided. Where is the equal opportunity assault on male sexuality? Why women's boobs; why not men's junk? Yeah, Seth, you have a gay following. Where's the cock and balls jokes? Stewie surely would have thought of some -- he's in your head, why didn't you let him out? Then I wouldn't have squirmed as much but squirm I did. And it did NOT bother me that he used the gay chorus to soften or lower the boob blow but I think that was not a coincidence. That's how you go there?
I do think we have gone overboard with the political correctness but I don't know, Seth was NOT funny enough to pull this off without offending.
I've seen Don Rickles, Kathy Griffin, Lisa Lampanelli live -- there was nothing lopsided in the attacks. Nothing was sacred and we in the audience all felt we were all one in politically incorrect heaven.
This year's Oscars felt like hours of hell on earth.
Follow Donald D'Haene on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@TheDonaldNorth
We are full and equal people and citizens. STOP your insensitivty. Your behaviour is offensicve to over 50% of the population.
I don't believe the author's comment. This seems like just something you would say in order to gain credibility before you start your lopsided argument.
Seth delivered exactly what I expected. His performance was fine for anyone with a sense of humour and The Family Guy hasn't been funny in years.
Just my humble opinion.
You can see that if you compare Family Guy to the Simpsons, in Family Guy, Lois is not as dumb as Peter, but she is just as insane as he is when you get down to it, Megs is frequently mocked and insulted and isn't perfect either, not by a longshot. Compare that to the Simpsons (and dozens of sitcoms previously), where Homer and Bart are moronic losers and Marge and Lisa are portrayed as intelligent women without significant flaws who suffer through the indignities of having to live in the same family as the two male characters. In Seth's world, both men and women can be laughed at.
It's not sexism, it's equal opportunity mocking.
BTW, the Clooney joke was ABOUT CLOONEY, not about women.
The Adele joke was about Rex Reed, not Adele.
The "We saw your boobs" song was about Seth himself and men's obsession on boobs (hence its intro). It wouldn't work on men's junks because A- men are not as embarrassed by showing their naked bodies as women are because of culture B- most women don't care about seeing men's junks (the reaction of women to dick profile pictures on adult dating sites is overwhelmingly negative).
The Clooney joke was more than about George. Please! Talking in front of a seven-year-old girl about her doing George in so many years...say that was your daughter...I'm not sorry that this gay 'family guy' would not want any young girl talked about that way.
Of course the Adele joke was ALSO about her...no matter how you look at he is making everyone think of her "size" ...by referencing Rex Reed's past comments
Your last comments on the Boob song..interesting take...it's not mine but there it is.