by Baylie Clevenger
The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinion of Byte or Byte's editorial board.
After a whirlwind of controversy involving Kevin Hart, who was originally meant to be the host of the 91st Oscars, this Sunday will officially bring us the first ceremony since 1989 with no host.
Every year, the ceremony relies on a host to make the show flow from one corny joke to the next amidst the numerous awards. The last time they didn’t have a host… well… it didn’t go so well.
The ceremony featured an 11-minute long musical number featuring people in unsettling faceless star costumes as well as awkward and poor acting from Eileen Bowman who did the performance dressed as Snow White with the high-pitched voice to match. She walked around the crowd singing to the audience members — who looked beyond unimpressed — in a falsetto tone that was almost painful to listen to.
The whole performance seemed forced and, quite frankly, it was easy to tell they did not know what to do without a host.
For a while, awards shows have been struggling with viewership. Since this is the case, they seem to be getting more and more desperate to find something that is both humorous and attention-grabbing. Without a host, there is no telling what they might come up with. The whole Snow White mess happened when people were still watching.
For example, the 2018 Emmys featured a tactless segment about how progressive awards shows are nowadays and giving “reparation Emmys” to people of color to make up for the past whitewashing of awards shows. Keep in mind that this was featured during an awards show where most of the televised awards were given to white nominees.
