Tina Fey Says “No Way” to Hosting the Oscars

Well okay then. Can we call Angela Bassett next?

Angela Bassett? Do you mean Whoopie? Has Angela Bassett been a frontrunner for Oscar hosting before?

Good. Comedy pieces are always greatly underrated at the oscars.

First off, I don’t remember there being a groundswell of support for MacFarlane before he got the nod. Second, if you can’t distinguish between Angela Bassett and Whoopi Goldberg, how about you take yourself back to Newsarama?

Aww c’mon Tiiinaaa!

Can’t say I blame her. The academy has made their priorities abundantly clear. And, from what I can tell, they don’t really match up with Tina Fey’s.

Wow. I was asking you a question, assuming you made a typo. Angela Bassett is neither high profile (at present) nor does she have a longstanding history as any sort of comedian or hostess. Why on earth would she be asked to host the Oscars?

I assumed you had made a typo, since Whoopie is one of the most frequent hosts of the Oscars, high profile, and a comedian.

I likewise assumed that you were trying to reference Whoopie because she seemingly debunks Fey’s suggestion that it would be especially difficult for a woman, considering that Whoopie has done it four times already.

But apparently you actually meant Angela Bassett for some still undetermined reason…

I asked the question about her being a frontrunner because I was asking you if you could explain why she might legitimately be the next person on the call list of women to host the Oscars, since I have no idea why she would be.

I’ll also add that “frontrunner” refers to someone who meets the typical standards of what one would expect a host for the Oscars to be: Well known, with several current, high profile projects, and a comedian or personable figure.

Angela Bassett is well known (relatively), but hasn’t had any particularly high profile work featuring her or a lot of media attention focused on her. Probably the most high profile work she’s done is Amanda Waller in Green Lantern, which was a supporting role in a box office bomb.

- Macfarlane is known to many, created the current running Family Guy, American Dad, and Cleaveland Show, which pull in high ratings, and is therefore known for his comedy.

- Anne Hathaway and James Franco were both young, high profile rising stars, who were well known among a young audience, which was the audience the Oscars wanted to capture for 2011, and had several high profile projects in the works, and were seemingly interesting or charming.

- Jon Stewart was known to many because of the currently running Daily Show, which was a comedy program with high ratings.

- Were Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to be selected as hosts, it would likely be because both of them are high profile with significant media attention, both of them are successful comedians, both of them were on high profile comedy television programs in starring roles, and both of them just finished hosting a high profile television event, The Emmy’s.

Angela Bassett seems to be a completely random selection, akin to suggesting that the Academy call Lawrence Fishburne or Jodi Foster to host the Oscars.

Angela Bassett seems to be a completely random selection, akin to suggesting that the Academy call Lawrence Fishburne or Jodi Foster to host the Oscars.

And something strikes you as “impersonable” about any of these people?

But let’s also recall that being a comedian hasn’t been one of the more stringent criteria until arguably 1987, when Chevy Chase hosted. Prior to that you had people like Rock Hudson, Sammy Davis Jr., John Houston, David Niven and dating back to William C. DeMille and Douglas Fairbanks. What you call “random,” I call “creative.” I want somebody up there who can appreciate what the evening means, and Bassett — along with Fishburne or Foster — can do that, in my estimation while keeping the train rolling. Maybe it’d be better if we lost some of the LULZ and got the focus back to the people winning the awards. Speaking of …

Macfarlane is known to many, created the current running Family Guy, American Dad, and Cleaveland Show, which pull in high ratings, and is therefore known for his comedy.

He is also known for casually misogynistic material which was pointed out as soon as he was named host. I think we might have been better off if the minutes spent on “We Saw Your Boobs” were spent hearing from the visual effects winners, no?

If she did she could sing a song called “I saw your wang”!

Please, let’s not conflate the objective fact that Macfarlane is known for comedy, no matter what that comedy might be, for support of the nature of that comedy. He’s a high profile, mainstream comedian, fitting the trend of hosting for, yes, the last 25 years. Him being chosen is no surprise on those merits alone.

Nevertheless, thank you for providing your reasoning that you feel that individuals who move away from the 25 year trend of comedy hosting are preferable hosts. That provides a clear understanding of what you meant, which is what I asked for.

Perhaps you can avoid this situation next time by not automatically assuming that I was trying to be snarky when I asked when Angela Bassett had been considered as a frontrunner. FYI, it was an earnest question, You might also avoid this situation by not assuming that when I ask about Whoopie Goldberg, a known Oscar host, that I’m somehow so racist that I can’t tell her apart from Angela Bassett. Cheers.

My Friend suggested Samuel L Jackson as host, which I think would be great, because anything that will shut down the current Oscar writers is welcome. As long as they stay, it’s going to be bad

Him being chosen is no surprise on those merits alone.

Nice to see you rationalizing the sexualizing of a 9-year-old girl and “jokes” about women portraying rape and then acting like a victim.

The Oscars want someone who can equal or match the ratings Seth was able to get. They were never going to ask her.

God, that’s such a misogynistic answer. It’s a good thing a woman said it and not a man ’cause then we’d be going crazy over how anti-woman he is instead of seeing that humor is humor.

/sarcasm

I love Tina.

You do realize that the Oscars had an 11% jump in ratings over the year before, don’t you? Regardless of whether or not you liked him, he was a success. He added viewers, and honestly, that’s the whole point.

If that’s all you care about, sure it is. But it would require a bit of empathy for that not to be the case, I guess.