Movie fans took to X – formerly Twitter – to voice their discomfort after a series of risky jokes from Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel fell on deaf ears at the 96th Academy Awards.
Whilst the Oscars may be the biggest night of the year for the world’s best actors and directors, it can also be a daunting one. As the winner’s name gets called, stars such as Cillian Murphy, Ryan Gosling and Robert Downey Jr. will make their way to the stage to collect their awards, to thank their agent and try not to stumble down the stairs.
Of course, some actors, such as the God of Thunder himself Chris Hemsworth, have the luxury of presenting the awards, reading out the names of the nominees and announcing the deserved winner at the end with a signature Aussie grin, but there’s one other gig of the night that seriously has to land.
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Returning for the fourth time as Oscars host, Jimmy Kimmel continued in Academy Awards tradition and took sly digs at the evening’s most famous guests to kick off proceedings in Hollywood.
The Late Night host honoured the SAG-AFTRA strikes that endured last year, questioned Margot Robbie’s high-profile snub and joked about Christopher Nolan’s porn addiction in an eventful opening monologue that shows why he’s one of the industry’s biggest comedians.
For the most part, Kimmel’s jokes landed with an expected laugh throughout the Dolby Theatre, but some risky quips garnered a mixed response from the designated targets… and fans online weren’t so pleased.
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Jimmy Kimmel joked that even though Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie may not win an Oscar at tonight’s event, they can rest easy because they’ve already won the “genetic lottery”.
Robert Downey Jr. has come a long way to be in contention for an Oscar for his performance in Christopher Nolan’s celebrated release Oppenheimer, but Kimmel’s insistence on bringing up the Marvel star’s history of drug abuse was painful viewing.
And then, of course, the tired opinion that movies nominated for the Oscars this year were far too long, but with a clean sweep of nominations and claims that ‘cinema was back’, I guess fans were pleased with the offerings of the past year.