Comedian Chris Rock opened the 88th Academy Awards with a monologue that poked fun at the diversity controversy which has marred this year’s ceremony.
He began: “I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards. You realise, if they nominated hosts I wouldn’t even get this job. You’d be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.”
Addressing why this year had attracted so much criticism, he explained: “Now the thing is, while we’re protesting, the big question is why this Oscars, why this Oscars? It’s the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole no-black-nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times.
“You’ve got to figure, it happened in the 50s and 60s, you know the 60s, one of those years Sidney (Poitier) didn’t put out a movie. I’m sure there was no black nominees this year, say ’62, ’63, and black people did not protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time.”
Oscars host Chris Rock (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
“We had real things to protest, we were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer. When your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.
“What happened this year, people went mad. Spike got mad. Jada went mad and Will went mad. Everyone went mad. Jada got mad, Jada said she’s not coming, protesting. I’m like, isn’t she on a TV show? Jada’s going to boycott the Oscars? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited. Oh, that’s not an invitation I would turn down.
“But I’m not hating, I understand you’re mad. Jada’s mad: her man Will was not nominated for Concussion, I get it. It’s not mad that Will was this good and didn’t get nominated. It’s also not fair that Will was paid 20 million dollars for Wild Wild West.”
Will Smith was mentioned in Chris Rock’s monologue (Ian West/PA)
He continued: “This year things are going to be a little different at the Oscars. This year in the ‘In Memoriam’ it’s just going to be black people who were shot by the cops on their way to the movies. Yes, I said it.”
Chris then reasoned how he would change the diversity issue in future years: “If you want black nominees every year, you need to have black categories. You already do it with men and women. Think about it, there’s no real reason for there to be a men and women category in acting. There’s no reason. It’s not track and field. You don’t have to separate them. Robert De Niro’s never said ‘I better slow this acting down so Meryl Streep can catch up,’ no!”
Chris Rock talked about Jada Pinkett Smith (Paul A Hebert/Invision/AP)
“If you want black people every year at the Oscars, just have black categories like best black friend. ‘And the winner for the 18th year in a row is Wanda Sykes’.”
Addressing whether Hollywood was racist, he said: “You’re damn right Hollywood’s racist, but you’ve grown accustomed to it. Hollywood is sorority racist. It’s like, ‘We like you Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa’. That’s Hollywood.
“But things are changing, we got a black Rocky this year. Some people call it Creed, I call it Black Rocky, and that’s an unbelievable statement. Rocky takes place in a world where white athletes are as good as black athletes. Rocky’s a science-fiction movie. There are things that happened in Star Wars that are more believable than things that happened to Rocky.”
Michael B Jordan and Sylvester Stallone in Creed (Warner Bros)
Rock claimed the greatest snub of the night had happened to Paul Giamatti.
“There’s a lot of snubs, but there’s a big one no one is talking about. My favourite actor in the world is Paul Giamatti. I believe he is the greatest actor in the world. Think about what Paul Giamatti has done in the last couple of years. Last year he’s in 12 Years A Slave, hates black people; this year he’s in Straight Outta Compton, loves black people. Last year he’s whipping Lupita; this year he’s crying at Eazy-E’s funeral. Now that’s range! Ben Affleck can’t do that.”
He continued: “What I’m trying to say is it’s not about boycotting everything, we want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities as white actors. That’s it. Not just once. Leo (DiCaprio) gets a great part every year, you guys get great parts every year. Look at Jamie Foxx, he is one of the best actors in the world. Jamie Foxx was so good in Ray that they went to the hospital and unplugged the real Ray Charles, like, we don’t need two of these.”
George Clooney (Anthony Devlin/PA)
He finished by tackling Oscars red carpet sexism instead: “Another big thing tonight is you’re not allowed to ask women what they’re wearing any more, it’s a whole thing, you have to ask her more… Well, not everything is sexism, not everything is racism.
“They ask the men more because the men are all wearing the same outfits. Every guy in there is wearing the exact same thing. If George Clooney showed up with a lime green tux on and a swan coming out his ass, someone would go, ‘What you wearing, George?’
“Welcome to the 88th Academy Awards.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here