Chris Rock’s Best Jokes of the Oscars

Filmmaker Spike Lee and actors Will and Jada Pinkett Smith are among the high-profile celebrities who have announced that they would not attend or watch Sunday night’s telecast. One of those years, Sidney [Poitier] didn’t put out a movie. “I have to congratulate the other nominees”.

Why? Because, Rock said, in his hardest-hitting and potentially most controversial comments of the night, “We had real things to protest at the time. When your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short”. But what happened this year?

“What happened this year, people went mad”. Gossett Jr. said he sympathized with the protesters, but felt change needed to come from within.

In the ensuing backlash, he was widely seen as a presciently inspired choice for diffusing tensions looming over the awards following only other turn as Oscar emcee in 2005, when he drew mixed reviews for a performance many saw as too provocative at the time.

“Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties”, he said, referring to the sultry singer. I understand you’re mad.

Room star Brie Larson was named best actress in a leading role and ended her speech thanking “the fans, the moviegoers, thank you for going to the theatre and seeing our films, I appreciate it, thank you”. And all you guys get great parts all the time. “This was a homage to Mad Max and I obviously didn’t get it quite right at the Baftas, the scarf was meant to be an oil rag”. “It’s also not fair that Will was paid $20 million for Wild Wild West”.

In an effort to cut back on the Oscars orchestra playing grateful winners off the stage, this year’s program was the first in which a ticker at the bottom of the screen listed off family, agents, and colleagues that the recipients wished to thank. Goldberg appeared in a skit making fun of Joy, where she joked that a black woman would have to cure cancer before she got so much as a TV movie made about her, whereas a “skinny white woman” who marketed a mop got a feature film made about her. In a spoof of The Martian, Rock played an astronaut trapped on Mars.

“I’ve always just adored stories”, said Rylance.

In an underdog win for a movie about an underdog profession, the newspaper drama “Spotlight” took best picture at an Academy Awards riven by protest and outrage, and electrified by an unflinching Chris Rock. You need to have black categories. You already do it with men and women. It’s not track and field. You don’t have to separate them.

“If you want black nominees every year, you need to have black categories”.

The Gold Derby website, which aggregates the predictions of the experts, has “The Revenant” in the lead for best film, but analysts are split on whether Inarritu will also pick up best director for the second year in a row following his win for ‘Birdman’. Critically acclaimed black Oscar hopefuls such as “Beasts of No Nation’s” Idris Elba, “Concussion” star Will Smith, “Creed” star Michael B. Jordan and the cast of N.W.A biopic “Straight Outta Compton” all were ignored.

It’s a balancing act for Rock, who is under pressure to bite the hand that feeds him but presumably doesn’t want to burn bridges in Hollywood with years of his career still ahead of him.

Some of the signs held by protesters included the slogans, “Hollywood Must do Better” and “Shame on You”. Is it “burning a cross” racist? No, it’s a different type of racist. A lot of you were there. It’s all of Hollywood and there were four black people there: me, Quincy Jones, Russell Simmons, Questlove. Every guy in there is wearing the exact same thing. Needless to say, Kevin Hart was not there. He made no mention of the changes the Academy promised in January, including an “ambitious, global campaign” to recruit voting members “who represent greater diversity”.