Stewart: Thumbs Up

The reviews for Jon Stewart's stint as host of the Academy Awards are decidedly mixed.
Andy Dehnart of MSNBC gave him a thumbs down as host, not so much because Stewart failed, but because Hollywood has the "inability to laugh at itself."
Ted Johnson of Variety wasn't thrilled with Stewart's performance, criticizing him for playing it too straight and delivering "one liners that could have easily have been said by consummate emcee Bob Hope."

Johnson did see some positives.

As the night wore on, he got more comfortable, and reverted back to his own kind of humor. After what seemed like the umpteenth clip package saluting such things as biopics and film noir, Stewart finally laid down the gauntlet and said, "Holy crap! We are out of clips."

Nevertheless, Johnson concluded with the admonition, "[I]n a year in which the niche pic reigned, he'd be well served not to forget his own niche." Basically, it was a thumbs down.
Not all the reviews were negative.

Gene Seymour of Newsday gave Stewart a thumbs up.
I do, too.

Although Stewart was an Oscar virgin, he has hosted big events before. In 2001, he played host at the Grammys. It's not like this was his first stab at the emcee role.

Stewart did seem somewhat uptight at the beginning, but it didn't take long for him to loosen up.

Seymour writes:

Stewart did exactly what a contemporary Academy Awards host is supposed to do. He's supposed to keep the zingers coming fast enough to work the room while nudging and winking at those of us watching at home.

Stewart makes his living as host of "The Daily Show," doing snarky double-takes at pretense and hubris. If you can't do that at an Academy Awards ceremony, where pretense and hubris cuddle up and blossom every year, you may as well go home and watch it on TV yourself.

Nowhere was this more apparent than his cappers to the interminable, time-filling montages in tribute to "noir" movies, "message" movies and epics. You and I can say "as if" to each such montage and no one would care. Stewart responds to clips of movies about racism, sexism, war, religious persecution and injustice by saying, "And none of those problems ever occurred again."

He even capped the whole conceit in a nice wrapper by saying, "I can't wait till later when we see Oscar's salute to montage."

You also had to love his whole serial shtick on the Mafia 3-6's's score of the best original song, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." "If you're keeping score," he quipped, "Martin Scorsese: Zero Oscars. Mafia 3-6: One."

He also said that the Mafia 3-6 posse was obviously going to throw down against violinist Izthak Perlman's gang after the show and that it would come down to a "dredle off."

Some memorable one-liners from Stewart's night

On "Capote": "The movie that showed the world that not all gay people are virile cowboys; some are actually effete New York intellectuals."

On Steven Spielberg's serious films: "Schindler's list ... Munich ... I think I speak for all Jews when I say I can't wait to see what happens to us next."

On presenters: "Bjork couldn't be here tonight. ... She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her."

On "Walk the Line": "'Ray' with white people."

After a photo montage showing suggestive scenes with men in early Westerns: "Charlton Heston is cut. Guy looks like he's been lifting 20 commandments."


Hollywood's brightest may have been expecting more anti-Bush humor, calls for impeachment, that sort of thing. Maybe their tepid response to Stewart's performance was the result of profound disappointment, like a kid not finding that long-awaited special gift under the tree on Christmas morning.

I think it was smart for Stewart to steer clear from the stuff that would alienate segments of the audience. I suppose that was a decision made by the show's producers, to keep it somewhat apolitical. With box office totals dropping, it certainly wouldn't be a good idea to turn even more people away from what Hollywood has to offer.

The ratings for Oscar telecasts have tanked. It would be self-defeating for Stewart to deliver a monologue that would tick off viewers at home, and prompt them to turn the marathon awards show off after its first few minutes.

As it was, the field of nominees were from mostly small films with relatively small audiences. There was no Titantic among them, no film that would cause the masses to tune in out of interest in seeing their favorite movie round up the awards.

Producers probably didn't give Stewart the option of going off on the Bush Administration. He needed to appeal to a broad range of viewers and that wasn't going to happen if he mercilessly slammed Bush and Co. in front of a global audience.

That was a let down to those hoping for Stewart to engage in a Bush bash fest, but too bad. They can wait for The Daily Show to hear that stuff. It's unfair for the anti-Bush bunch to charge Stewart with selling out. He did his job.

Dehnart of MSNBC thinks Stewart will be added to the list of failed Oscar hosts, including Chris Rock and David Letterman. I disagree. Last year, Rock was nothing special. Letterman was a disaster, possibly the worst Oscar host ever. I'm sure Letterman would agree. He was awful.

Billy Crystal has been the most popular host in the recent past because he managed to be topical and quick-witted without being partisan and hateful. That was the secret to his success.

Unlike Crystal, Stewart had to overcome the disadvantage of being the host of a program currently on the air that is fueled by politics. As a result, expectations for Stewart were certainly different and most likely worked against him in lib circles.

All in all, I think Stewart struck the right balance.

He wasn't great, but he was much better than Rock, and dramatically better than Letterman.

"Uma, Oprah... Oprah, Uma..."

Now that was bad.