The Oscars played it safe with a return engagement of Jimmy Kimmel as the master of ceremonies for the 96th Academy Awards. The jokes were plentiful, although a few were in questionable taste (such as the ones about Robert Downey Jr.’s male member and his past drug use). Although the evening was not devoid of politics — with protesters against the ongoing conflict in Gaza outside the Dolby Theater causing a five minute delay to the start of the ceremony; Jonathan Glazer, director of The Zone of Interest, decrying the current violence in the Middle East when accepting the film’s award for Best International Feature; and prominent attendees sporting red pins supporting a Gaza ceasefire — overt political moments were minimal with one notable exception: Near the end of the broadcast, Kimmel announced that he had received a message from former President Donald Trump on Truth Social.
“Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars,” Trump wrote on his social media platform. “His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be. Get rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up, but cheap, ABC ‘talent,’ George Slopanopoulos. He would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous.”
Trump then slammed the show, saying:
Also a really bad politically correct show tonight, and for years — Disjointed, boring, and very unfair. Why don’t they just give the Oscars to those that deserve them. Maybe that way their audience and TV ratings will come back from the depths. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Kimmel quipped: “Thank you President Trump…. I’m surprised you’re still watching. Isn’t it past your jail time?”
Trump deserves credit for this brilliant public-relations move. While the crowd laughed at Kimmel’s “jail time” comment, they were likely impressed with Trump’s ability to insert himself into the evening. No doubt his opponent in the 2024 presidential race was already sleeping.
As predicted, Oppenheimer was the night’s big winner. Nominated for 13 awards, Christopher Nolan’s film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American scientist instrumental in the creation of the atomic bomb, received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Cillian Murphy, and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. Oppenheimer, which has earned over $957 million at the box office, was additionally recognized for its original score, cinematography, and editing. Emma Stone walked away with the Best Actress award for her role in Poor Things, and Best Supporting Actress went to Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers.
Robert Downey Jr’s acceptance speech represented one of the evening’s most poignant moments:
I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy — in that order. I’d like to thank my veterinarian — I meant wife, Susan Downey over there. She found me a snarling rescue pet and you loved me back to life. That’s why I’m here…. Here’s my little secret. I needed this job more than it needed me. Chris [Nolan] knew it. Emma [Thomas] made sure that she surrounded me with one of the great casts and crews of all time — Emily [Blunt], Cillian [Murphy], Matt Damon…. It was fantastic. And I stand here before you a better man because of it. You know, what we do is meaningful, and the stuff that we decide to make is important.
Although Stone, the 2017 Best Actress Oscar winner for La La Land, was widely praised for her portrayal of Poor Things’ Bella Baxter, a created woman with a child’s mentality. Oscar prognosticators were predicting that the award would go to Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon, as such a win would have been the first for a Native American. In her acceptance speech, Stone paid tribute to the movie-making process. “It’s about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts,” she said. “And that is the best part about making movies: … all of us together. And I am so deeply honored to share this with every cast member, with every crew member, with every single person who poured their love and their care and their brilliance into the making of this film.” (RELATED: The Oscars Unwittingly Celebrate Sexual Morality With Poor Things)
Stone’s gracious acceptance speech was complicated by a wardrobe malfunction. “My dress is broken. I think it happened during ‘I’m Just Ken,’” Stone said, making a reference to her La La Land co-star Ryan Gosling’s over-the-top performance of his Barbie character’s signature song, in which the audience joined. Although Barbie, the top-grossing film of 2023 at over $1.4 billion in box office revenue, earned eight nominations, the film took home only one Oscar, Best Original Song, for Billie Eilish’s “What I Was Made For.” The song’s composers, Billie Eilish, 22, and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, 26, are the youngest people in history to have won two Oscars. The duo received their first Oscar in 2022 for the title song of the James Bond movie No Time to Die. The Academy’s exclusion of director Greta Gerwig and lead actress Margot Robbie from the Best Director and Best Actress nominations sparked a feminist backlash in the buildup to the awards ceremony. To that end, Kimmel opened his monologue claiming that Gerwig should have been nominated for Best Director and praising Robbie, who, in addition to playing the title role, was instrumental in the production of the film. (RELATED: Barbie Snubbed as Ken Set to Perform at Oscars)
Although viewership for the Oscars has declined significantly since its most recent apex in 2000, when over 46.3 million people tuned in, recent stats have been encouraging, with 18.7 million viewers in 2023, an 8 percent increase over 2022, which saw 16.62 million. There continues to be subset of the population who looks forward to the Oscars with Super Bowl–level anticipation, an observation of which Trump is keenly aware. The Academy is celebrating its 96th year because its awards still have tremendous perceived value within the industry and to the movie-watching public, as is evidenced by the plethora of published works about Hollywood’s “biggest night,” such as Michael Schulman’s marvelous book Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears. And if the Academy continues the practice of starting the Oscars an hour earlier, more people may tune in come 2025.
