My thoughts include:
Tonally, it felt as though four different awards shows had a head on impact in the middle of the Dolby stage, and then spent the night each trying to climb over each other to escape the wreckage.
The first was the Seth MacFarlane show, straight from the Comedy Central Roasts. The schtick of being an Oscar host has always been to be just a little bit roasty; to poke fun at Hollywood within some very narrow parameters. The impossibility of that task — being funny while still being “respectful” – is why the Oscar hosting job has been the killing fields of comic reputations from David Letterman to Jon Stewart to Chris Rock.
But MacFarlane tonight sought to find a way out of that trap by sidestepping the paradox; he would be offensive, but not to Hollywood’s sacred cows. Instead he would pull out the shock humor and be naughty by taking on more general sensibilities; like treating women with a modicum of respect. And so we opened the show with an array of frat boy humor that rang as though it were lifted from the pages of Maxim. The now legendary “We Saw Your Boobs” will go down as one of Oscar’s great what were they thinking’s.