Charlize Theron feigns dissatisfaction with MacFarlane's song
Seth MacFarlane gave a faded last salute to the orchestra. Everything seemed to be going according to plan. He had just finished singing a hilarious, marching comedy number called «We Saw Your Tits,» which detailed all the times the actresses attending the ceremony had appeared topless in films.
“Meryl Streep, we saw your breasts in Silkwood,” MacFarlane sang. «Naomi Watts on Mulholland Drive…» The camera showed Watts herself; she looked like she really enjoyed the movie We Saw Your Tits, but her face showed confusion and pain.
“Angelina Jolie, we saw your breasts in Gia,” he continued. “It made us feel excited and alive!” As MacFarlane sang, «Charlize Theron, we saw your breasts in Monster,» the camera panned to Theron, who slumped to the right and put a hand to her temple. She looked furious.
The sequence was not what it seemed. Theron and Watts were in on the joke. If anything, their believable looks of shock were a tribute to their craft. This opening ceremony for the 85th Academy Awards in February 2013 was supposed to be a big meta joke about how much controversy MacFarlane was predicted to cause on cinema's holiest night.
At the Dolby Theatre, «We Saw Your Boobs» seemed to do well; there were some big laughs, and if it went on too long, it was at least in keeping with the great tradition of the Oscars. Jennifer Lawrence, who gave the camera a little fist pump as MacFarlane sang that no one saw her breasts, was also a fan. “I liked the song about boobs,” she said backstage. “I thought he was great. I thought he was funny.»
But from outside the hall, those looks of pained embarrassment were a fair assessment of how MacFarlane's concert had failed. It became apparent pretty quickly that this was the lowest point of the Oscars, compared to the worst ever: more ill-conceived than Rob Lowe honking in Disney's version of Proud Mary with Snow White in 1989; more nauseating than James Corden and Rebel Wilson appearing in cat costumes in 2020; more downright offensive than John Travolta misrepresenting Idina Menzel's name in Adele Dazeem in 2014. It may not have been “The Slap,” but it wasn’t far off. Oscar reached out to MacFarlane, trying to make himself feel less stuffy. In response, he gave them a firestorm.
The original idea was that MacFarlane had seen the worst possible version of his own performance: William Shatner reprising his role as Captain Kirk on the big screen at the Dolby Theater, warning MacFarlane that he had seen the ceremony take place. play out from its vantage point in the 23rd century. Kirk then showed him how horribly this would all turn out. Theron and Watt recorded their reactions in advance; Instead of getting angry, Theron appeared on stage with MacFarlane to dance with Channing Tatum right after the We Saw Your Boobs video.
But this set of air quotes quickly disappeared, and MacFarlane followed him with a series of jokes that set teeth on edge. Nine-year-old Best Actress nominee Quvenzhané Wallis was greeted with this: “Just to give you an idea of how young she is, it will be 16 years before she is too old for [George] Clooney.”
Seth MacFarlane with William Shatner at the 2013 Academy Awards. Photo: WireImage
Kathryn Bigelow's Best Picture winner Zero Dark Thirty was «a triumph as well as a celebration of every woman's innate ability to never miss a thing.» Hosts Jennifer Lopez and former Chippendales contestant Channing Tatum were introduced with, «Of our next two hosts, at least one is honest about being a former exotic dancer.»
Ironic sexism wasn't the only minefield MacFarlane decided to confront. The skit featured foul-mouthed anthropomorphic teddy bear Ted, voiced by MacFarlane and star of the new TV show, arguing with his co-star Mark Wahlberg about how he intends to continue his career. «I was born Theodore Shapiro, and I would like to donate to Israel and continue working in Hollywood forever,» Ted said.
Salma Hayek's acceptance speech was dedicated to Latin actors, who are obviously difficult for English-speaking people to understand. “We've finally reached that point in the ceremony,” MacFarlane said, “where Javier Bardem or Penelope Cruz or Salma Hayek walk on stage and we have no idea what they're saying, but we don't care because they're so attractive. » Django Unchained is «the story of a man who fights to get his woman back after being subjected to unimaginable violence — or, as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a «date movie.»
Naomi Watts performing MacFarlane's «We Saw Your Boobs»
In Internet circles that idolized MacFarlane, it was well received, and the room was filled with boos over the assassination of Abraham Lincoln: «I would say the actor who got most into Lincoln's head was John Wilkes Booth,» was greeted with «boo,» as well as a reference to the Django Unchained script, «based on Mel Gibson's voicemails.» Otherwise, to a lesser extent.
“Among the women I talked to today, I would say I didn’t hear one who thought it was in good taste,” Crash producer Katie Shulman told the New York Times. Julie Burton, president of the Women's Media Center, said that «the whole world has seen them honor men and ridicule women.» California State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson and Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, who chaired the Women's Legislative Caucus, wrote in a letter to Academy President Hawk Koch that the film We Saw Your Tits «reduced our best female actresses to caricatures and stereotypes, demeaning women in in general and the film industry itself.”
Tweeting in support of Best Supporting Actress Anne Hathaway, he wrote an acceptance speech: «It came true!» — Girls' writer Lena Dunham contrasted Hathaway with MacFarlane. “Let’s reserve our bad attitude for those who don’t advance the cause,” she wrote. The “those who don’t advance the cause” that I mentioned are not always or most of the time women. Case in point: I Saw Your Boobs.»
Jennifer Lawrence Calling We Saw Your Boobs «Hilarious» #39 ;
A few days after the ceremony, Jane Fonda blogged about her night at the Oscars. «What I really didn't like was the song and dance number about seeing actresses' boobs,» she wrote. “I agree with someone who said: if they want to stoop to this, why not list all the penises we've seen? Better yet, remember that this TV show is watched all over the world by families with their children, and for many it is inappropriate and not funny. I also didn't like the comment about Quvenjean and Clooney, or what Ted said, and all the comments about what women do to lose weight for dresses. Wow, there's too much talk about women and bodies, as if that's what defines us.»
The Ted skit was also undesirable. «While we've come to expect Seth MacFarlane to make inappropriate jokes about 'the Jews control Hollywood,' what he did at the Oscars was offensive and not even remotely funny,» the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement. “This only reinforces the stereotypes that legitimize anti-Semitism. It's sad and disheartening that the Oscars tried to use anti-Jewish stereotypes for laughs.» Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Wiesenthal Center was also deeply unimpressed. “The Oscars are broadcast to every corner of the globe, even to places where such hateful myths are considered fact,” he said in a statement. “Every comedian is entitled to broad discretion, but no one should get a free pass for promoting anti-Semitism.”
This should not have come as a surprise; it was almost what the Oscars wanted. For years, producers bounced between hosts, trying to find someone who wasn't too boring, or too weird, or too old, or Billy Crystal. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were competent if unimpressive in 2010, then in 2011 Anne Hathaway was paired with James Franco for one of the strangest double acts Hollywood could put together. She was cheerful and excited; he seemed to be barely concentrating on what was happening. Together they created a black hole of antichemistry. Crystal performed well in 2012, but this was his ninth time hosting.
It seemed like the whole thing needed some new blood, especially when even the Golden Globes made the Oscars look like crap. Ricky Gervais turned the awards show on its head as its first host in 2010, and his extended run of Hollywood's top stars went so well that he was invited back for the next two years.
Irreverence, bad taste and insulting celebrities were all the rage. So «Chicago» and «Hairspray» producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron took over the ceremony and turned to Seth MacFarlane, who was then at the height of his popularity on «Family Guy.» MacFarlane seemed like the perfect combination of old Hollywood talk and new TV smarts: He had just recorded the big band album Music Is Better Than Words, which received two Grammy nominations; and boys all over America listened to him. They wanted a guy who could give it a little edge, but who also wanted to duet with Barbra Streisand. Everyone would be happy.
And that, in a nutshell, was what MacFarlane was aiming for. He planned to open the show with some «very low-key, old-style song and dance,» something Billy Crystal or 2009 host Hugh Jackman would have done. Then he thought about what the commentators had said about him leading up to the ceremony, and he thought again.
“I never mentioned it, but the joke came about because I read a lot of the press,” MacFarlane told Marc Maron on his WTF podcast in 2019. “You should never read your own press, but I read a lot of press. There was a lot of really angry stuff foaming at the mouth in the lead up to the Oscars. It got to the point where I had to comment on it somehow.”
The new angle was to make more Family Guy but add enough meta levels to We Saw Your Tits that you could get away with it. But Shatner's cameo didn't help much. The harsh reaction to MacFarlane's hosting and especially the accusations of misogyny against him were too loud for the Academy to ignore. “If the Oscars are about anything, it is about creative freedom,” the Academy said in a statement. “We think show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron and host Seth MacFarlane did an excellent job, and we hope our global audience found the show entertaining.”
Seth MacFarlane backstage at the Oscars. Photo: Getty
Zadan and Meron insist they have no regrets about We Saw Your Tits. «You hire Seth MacFarlane, you want something to be cutting-edge and irreverent,» Zadan told the New York Times.
At the time, MacFarlane brazenly responded to the criticism with a «what am I» shrug, and the next day he tweeted a photo of himself holding his cat with the caption: «My cat said the show was good.» – and some kind of joyful relief. When asked on Twitter if he would return for the next Oscars, his answer was clear. “No way,” he tweeted. “It was fun to do, though.”
More recently, however, some barb has crept into MacFarlane's retelling. “This idea of creating an alternative Oscar was exactly what they were afraid of,” MacFarlane told Marc Maron on his WTF podcast in 2019. made it clear that he was not part of the Los Angeles Gay Men's Choir he had just performed with — the shot around We Saw Your Boobs did it all well. “It’s something that gets forgotten,” McFarlane said ruefully. “They always forget the context.”
But in reality, it was more like MacFarlane was having his cake. The problem, in his opinion, was that the entire show was watched by people who expected it to fail. “It's so easy to shit at the Oscars because you don't have to read the news, you don't have to know the history, you don't have to do anything,” MacFarlane told Maron. “You just have to sit back and watch and tweet. That's all you need to do. You see far more outrage over the Oscars than you see harmful legislation.»
And in the end, ratings rose — by three percent overall and 11 percent among the 18-49 demographic that the Oscars were so eager to reach. A decade later, it looks like the final act of a deliberately outrageous lad comedy that «South Park» and «Family Guy» made exciting, but which turned into slag like the disgusting «Movie 43.» This film, which also featured MacFarlane. and was released four weeks before the ceremony, is now considered one of the worst ever made, and the revulsion that greeted both it and MacFarlane's Oscar performance suggested a weariness with leering provocateurs.
However, there was a chance that MacFarlane could return for more. “I was asked to come back after a year of hosting, probably because their numbers had increased,” MacFarlane told Maron. “Part of me wanted to say yes, but I realized that the only reason I was saying yes was to sort of expose the detractors. That's not a good enough reason to do this kind of work.”
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