It’s Donald Trump’s fault.
The former president, campaigning to return to the White House for four more years, uncorked a Trumpian slam against Jimmy Kimmel Sunday night.
Trump mocked Kimmel’s Oscar-night performance just in time for the late-night Leftist to read the diatribe on-air to millions of viewers.
Donald Trump triggered Jimmy Kimmel while he was hosting the Oscars. pic.twitter.com/u3DkGVBtuF
— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) March 11, 2024
Up until then, the 96th Academy Awards telecast was 98 percent free of both politics and woke virtue signaling.
And it’s not an accident.
We’ve previously witnessed the Emmys, Golden Globes and the Grammys telecasts mostly push politics off-camera.
Even the 2023 Oscars ceremony focused, for the most part, on the nominees and featured films first.
What gives?
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Hollywood has known for some time that audiences don’t want lectures with their award shows. You just have to sample social media accounts to grasp the anger aimed at the modern awards gala.
Or, look at the ratings.
Down, down down they went, a startling collapse in some cases.
The 2014 Oscars ceremony attracted 43 million viewers. The 2022 version? Just 16.6 million, and that might have gotten a boost from the Slap heard ’round the world.
Five years ago, the New York Times spoke to Oscar producers who tracked ratings down to the minute. When an award show segment features a political diatribe, the ratings sank.
One recent producer of the Oscars said that minute-by-minute post-show ratings analysis indicated that “vast swaths” of people turned off their televisions when celebrities started to opine on politics.
Yet that was all the way back in 2018, just as the award shows’ ratings slip was hitting peak velocity.
It didn’t change how Hollywood approached these galas. They kept pouring political moments into the telecasts, from the cringe-worthy monologues to the acceptance speeches.
Brad Pitt stained his Oscar moment by bringing up a quickly irrelevant anti-Trump jibe. The 60-year-old star may never get another moment like that again. He still felt compelled to drag his political opinions into the moment.
Or, remember the trio of hostesses evoking the fake “don’t say gay” meme from our corrupt press?
That was the New Normal.
The New, New Normal is … Old.
The Billy Crystal Award Show Template Is Back!
The focus is more on nostalgia than nasty political jabs. Most stars thank their family members and co-stars at award shows, leaving the political bromides backstage.
We still see a few flickers of protest, from the various buttons stars wear to morally shocking claims made in the heat of the moment.
'Zone of Interest' Executive Producer Danny Cohen Refutes Director Jonathan Glazer's Oscar Speech: 'I Just Fundamentally Disagree' https://t.co/pLiJO4gJ4z
— Variety (@Variety) March 15, 2024
What changed?
Hollywood, for starters.
The digital age has the industry scared silly. And for good reason.
Streaming platforms are struggling to shed red ink. The theatrical experience is back following the COVID-19 pandemic, but we’re still seeing a shocking number of flops. Even surefire sequels no longer deliver.
It doesn’t help that the Biden economy made everything worse, even for the multi-millionaires in Hollywood. We don’t need to pass that hat around for Tom Hanks or Sterling K. Brown, but the industry has never faced a more uncertain future.
The stars, and their support systems, can no longer afford to chase audiences away. They’re also feeling a renewed sense of gratitude following last year’s dueling strikes. The threat of A.I. lurks over, well, everything in the creative arts.
All of the above means award shows are less divisive and more fun. Again.
Now, will enough Americans give them a second chance?
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