Oscars 2013: Seth McFarlane is the Bum

We saw your boobs, and your boobs, and your boobs, Seth McFarlane sang – his teeth so white and his privilege so resplendent – embracing among these opportunities to peek at the breasts of actresses scenes of violence and rape, such as Hilary Swank in Boys Don't Cry or Jody Foster in The Accused. I had spent a lot of time cutting up onions and peppers and apples and pickles for my potato salad – I had even ironed my cloth napkins, in preparation for the arrival of my Oscars posse, a group of less than a half dozen who have been watching the Academy Awards together for years and years. I didn’t vacuum the carpets and re-arrange the furniture in order to have some straight white male play out his problems in my living room.

If he wasn’t insulting me as a woman, he was toying with me as a Jew – suggesting (in his Ted character) that to qualify for Hollywood Mark Wahlberg should convert to Judaism and donate to Israel – or being singularly unfunny about race: conflating Denzel Washington and Eddie Murphy. If he wasn’t insulting Adele’s size – Adele for gawd’s sake! – he was giggling with smarmy glee at the women he supposed enjoyed the flu because it caused them to lose some weight. He addressed the evening to the other straight white men – the only audience that counts for him, apparently. [The first Oscars, 1929]

I truly freaked when he referred to a “bum” pissing on the DVD of his own film. What the fuck is a “bum”? A homeless kid thrown out of his house by homophobic parents? an unemployed woman trying to support her child? an addict with no access to rehab? I haven’t heard the word “bum” for a long time and I don’t want it spat into my living room.

So this guy is a comedian? Why does he need to apologize and explain his “jokes?” Because they aren’t working. Because they aren’t funny. Because he’s an asshole and even he knows it. That’s why he so self-referential, commenting on his own routines, critiquing his own schtick as he fails to squeeze any joy from the room. McFarlane is the Academy’s idea of appealing to a "younger" audience, as if through bypassing the Boomers and the legacy of our movements, Hollywood can drag women right back to the 1950s. [31st Oscars 1959]

That Seth McFarlane was chosen for the job of MC, despite being so ill-suited and so idiotic, is just the tip of the iceberg. It goes back even beyond the fact that of the 175 nominees, just 35 were women. It’s not only who is making the choices about nominations and MCs: it’s about who is making the choices about who gets to make and be involved in the movies. But then, you knew that.

The highlight of the evening, besides hangin’ with my cadre of Oscars peeps eating my potato salad, was Shirley Bassey’s astounding performance (see a short clip below). At age 76 she reprised her 1964 version of the James Bond theme song “Goldfinger” with all the gusto and pizzazz needed to truly own the evening, musically. Daniel Day-Lewis, too, rose above the rest with his acceptance speech. Meryl Streep (the presenter of his Oscar for best acting) and he had done a “straight swap,” he claimed: he had been set to play Margaret Thatcher and she was Spielberg’s first choice to play Lincoln.

The best that McFarlane could muster was a less-than-grand finale with the chirpy, squeaky Kristin Chenoweth in a duet about the losers, naming names, that reinforced the sour repulsion he had earned throughout the evening. The producers defended his entire performance as “cutting edge and irreverent,” as if white boys hating women and people of color was the latest thing. Perhaps the best line in the reviews I’ve read of the evening comes from Margaret Lyons in her piece “Why Seth MacFarlane’s Misogyny Matters,” in which she said: “This wasn't an awards ceremony so much as a black-tie celebration of the straight white male gaze.”
 

Comments

[Stephen Weinstein]

Your observations are spot on! Also eligible for severe criticism are the producers and writers of this sophomoric presentation.

Apples and pickles in a potato salad???

[Sue Katz]

And celery and red pepper and scallions and other treats. Don't knock it till you try it, Stephen!

[Gema Gray]

Absolutely! Cut all the hate-masquerading-as-jokes, and the totally unnecessary, poorly executed, dance numbers. Then let the Oscar winners speak without drowning them out. When an award is won by multiple people, I think each of them should be able to pay tribute to their supporters and families.

In addition to women, Jews, blacks, and the homeless, the inappropriate "jokes" also encompassed alcohol abuse, drug use, pedophilia, Hispanics, the list goes on...Ugh!!

[Sue Katz]

Gema, cut all of that the whole show can be an hour long! Yeah, he really is seething with arrogance and hatred - just like Hollywood. Thanks for writing.

[Shirley Moskow]

Not only women were offended. My husband walked out on what he called a "hateful" presentation. He never saw the end of the program.

[rita connolly]

Since I just retired it was my first chance to see the Oscars in years. Perhaps never again. Maybe make potato salad and invite others for an evening of Train Dominoes. Life is too short for supporting that crap.

[sue katz]

Rita, hold on there. I'm not letting one year of Seth MacFarland kill my party - which I have held in various countries over decades. When Whoopie or Ellen hosted, it was hysterical. There was a long period of political activism - from Native American rights to supporting the fight for a cure to AIDS to publicly coming out. Don't make such drastic assumptions because this piece of fecal matter got $100 million to screw up our evening. There were many years where it was good entertainment.

[sue katz]

Shirley, your guy missed one of the most pathetic show endings in TV history. Well done on his part.

[rita connolly]

Katz, by all means make potato salad and other goodies, vacuum, invite and enjoy. I am addressing how I may choose to spend my time. Many years in my case without seeing Oscars has made it clear that life can go on with or without this event. Working evenings and nights for years means I often didn't get to see the movies. So if too lazy to make that potato salad (make it well and also put extras in - no apples but big on olives) I may just opt to go see one of them thar picture shows. Not really sure we will see the good entertainment era again too soon. But I could take your word for it if it returns.

[Jo-Lynne]

And what about the LA gay men's chorus singing it???
What were they thinking?

[sue katz]

Jo-Lynne, that was so horrifying that I completely repressed it. What WERE they thinking?

[sue katz]

There really wasn't much to see in this crop of movies, Rita, other than the documentaries, which apparently were all worthy of our time.

[Sheila Parks]

How much did the Dick really get paid? I was multi-tasking or I would have shut it off, but it came through anyhow. I don't know why I did not shut if off, it was beyond words, beyond the beyond