‘The Incident’ which took place between Chris Rock and Will Smith at the 2022 Oscars was a double-edged sword. It brought a bored audience back; between 2014 and 2020, the televised Academy Awards lost almost half their viewers, while in 2023 they were up by 18 million as eager punters tuned in hoping to see a bitch-fight between Olivia Colman and Nicole Kidman. But a couple of years without a dust-up will no doubt make a re-bored audience turn its collective back once more – and judging from last night’s astonishingly enervated showing they’d be totally justified.

The best bit is when the cameras pan in on the hopefuls and we see the rictus grins

Jonathan Ross featured in the cavalcade this year when he presented a ‘companion show’ for we lucky Brits. Ross confirmed the worst when he sniffed of the hosting of the actual Oscars: ‘You don’t want it to be totally anodyne and bland but you don’t want to go full Ricky Gervais and have the actors sitting there panicking thinking ‘What are they going to say about me?’’. But that’s exactly what you do want; the moment when the laughing Thalia mask slips and one sees the sad Melpomene mask beneath it – and then again, even beneath that, the Kaled mutant who drives the Dalek, just a blob with one eye looking out from the big glossy monster, protecting it and allowing it to ride roughshod over mere mortals. Because of this, the best bit is always when the cameras pan in on the hopefuls and we see the rictus grins when the blessed one wins – or rather, we used to. Now that facial fillers are so prevalent, the lack of expression they engender means that we can never truly feel the loser’s pain which, if we’re honest, was always the best bit.

QOSHE - Final act / This tragic Oscars shows the Golden Age of Hollywood is over - Julie Burchill
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Final act / This tragic Oscars shows the Golden Age of Hollywood is over

11 8
11.03.2024

‘The Incident’ which took place between Chris Rock and Will Smith at the 2022 Oscars was a double-edged sword. It brought a bored audience back; between 2014 and 2020, the televised Academy Awards lost almost half their viewers, while in 2023 they were up by 18 million as eager punters tuned in hoping to see a bitch-fight between Olivia Colman and Nicole Kidman. But a couple of years without a dust-up will no doubt make........

© The Spectator


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