Seth MacFarlane's performance as host of the 85th Academy Awards show has reportedly been met with "mixed" reviews.
Which is code for "positive, but a few people in journalism are committed to manufacturing a scandal out of this somehow anyway."
The majority of the "controversy" of MacFarlane's performance has thus far stemmed from an opening musical number dubbed "We Saw Your Boobs," in which MacFarlane, with the accompaniment of the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles, lists off the films (most of which were Oscar nominees themselves) in which Hollywood's elite appeared topless or otherwise exposed (Merryl Streep in Silkwood, Helen Hunt in The Sessions, Halle Berry in Monster's Ball, Anne Hathaway in Brokeback Mountain, etc.).
If this should have been interpreted as anything, it should have been seen as social commentary; as poking fun of the fact that this supposedly taboo topic is actually commonplace, not just in cinema, but in elite, award winning cinema.
A select few nimrods with computers, on the other hand, have committed themselves to declaring the musical number etc. to be sexist and misogynistic, with Shine's Beth Greenfield even going so far as to accuse MacFarlane of poking fun of rape because of some of the movies listed during the musical number.
The response to the criticism by Greenfield etc. of MacFarlane's hosting of the Oscars has since been as negative as they clearly wanted the response to his hosting of the Oscars to have been.
No, if there was any true low point of the night at the Oscars, it had to have come when the award for Best Animated Feature was handed out.
The award was once again given to Pixar, this time for Brave. And when it was announced, writer and director Mark Andrews took to the stage in a blue neon kilt and opened his acceptance speech with what may very well have been the most phony and over the top "This is such a surprise!" act in the Academy's 85-year history.
It was mentioned previously that, by continuing to lavish praise onto Pixar year after year, regardless of the quality of their product, the Academy etc. are encouraging the people at Pixar to feel that they no longer have to try and that they can continue to show up and collect no matter what they produce.
On Oscar night, that kind of arrogance that had been forewarned of was on full display with Mark Andrews. And the only reason he and his cohorts are getting away with this -- why he has not been called out by all the people who were tripping over themselves to be the first to attack MacFarlane, is because nobody seems to care about the category.
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