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I’m not usually a betting man, but if I was, I’d have wagered a lot of money on the proposition that Seth MacFarlane would not be hosting the Academy Awards in 2014. Whatever you thought of his performance as host — I’m one of the rare pop-culture observers who didn’t hate him, and even kind of liked him — the way that the media pounced on his “Look, Ma, no taste!” preening had a definitive, hanging-judge finality about it. In the days following the 2013 Oscar ceremony, the outpouring of indignation from media and entertainment pundits over MacFarlane’s deliberately shameless quips about Rihanna and Jews in Hollywood and Abe Lincoln’s assassination, not to mention the song-and-dance sequence (“We Saw Your Boobs!”) that instantly became the most reviled Oscar production number since Rob Lowe cavorted with Snow White…well, let’s just say that the media, as it so often does, effectively spoke with one voice, and what that voice said is: “You, Seth MacFarlane, have crossed a line that you shouldn’t have crossed. Your hosting gig was a scandalous embarrassment, or at the very least a bombastic and offensive mistake. We know that you stepped over the line, because we’re the people who draw the line. If you want to direct another potty-mouth comedy like Ted, be our guest, but as far as the Academy Awards go, consider yourself excommunicated.” READ FULL STORY »
