The Oscars Wanted Zelensky. They Got an Accused Sexual Harasser Instead.

Marlow: On Monday, co-host Amy Schumer revealed on The Drew Barrymore Show that if she’d had her way, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would take time off from trying to save the lives of his people during Russia’s invasion of his country to beam into the Academy Awards. “I wanted to find a way to have Zelensky satellite in or make a tape or something, just because there are so many eyes on the Oscars,” Schumer said, adding, “I think it’s a great opportunity to at least comment on a couple of things. I have some jokes that kind of highlight the sort of current condition.” Whew. An Academy representative attempting to reach Zelensky during an actual war to arrange a cameo at the Oscars sounds like something out of an Armando Iannucci show, but here we are.

Kevin: We’re going to get more into it, but based on how random and irrelevant the presenter invites have been thus far—noted titans of cinema like DJ Khaled and Tony Hawk!—I’m at least willing to give her credit for an idea that had some sort of relevancy to the moment. That’s, unfortunately, how low the bar is at this point.

Why Has ‘CODA’ Become This Year’s Big Oscar Villain?ARE THE PUNDITS OK?

Kevin Fallon, Marlow Stern, Marlow Stern

Marlow: But… he’s in the middle of an actual war! The idea that a world leader whose life—and whose people’s lives—are in grave danger should take a break from wartime to address a bunch of rich people in tuxedos and gowns at the Oscars strikes me as pretty unseemly, and while I’m sure it comes from a good place, a representation of how out of touch some Hollywood folks are. I wouldn’t be surprised if they saw Zelensky’s show on Netflix and thought, “Hey, he’s an actor! Let’s have him at the Academy Awards!”

Kevin: I mean, it was an idea. I don’t think Oscar producers were about to break into a Ukrainian bunker and force Zelensky to sit in front of a Zoom screen and introduce Encanto. I think they just thought, “What could make for a major moment,” for better or worse.

Marlow: With the Oscars’ TV ratings in the shitter—a rerun of The Big Bang Theory would blow it out of the water stateside—the idea that Zelensky would be broadcasting his message to this large global audience also doesn’t hold water. And how does this square with the Tony Hawk and DJ Khaled of it all? So, you’re going to MTV-ify the Oscars while also broadcasting messages from the Ukrainian president as he’s under attack? These people have no idea what they’re doing. It’s nuts.

Kevin: Again, in light defense of the Zelensky gambit: As they say, if you shoot for the moon, you’ll land among… well, the litany of pop-culture bloggers and rabid tweeters ready to ask for your head for making a controversial suggestion. But I at least appreciate the (misguided) notion to “think big” instead of our current reality, which seems to be more along the lines of “think like a straight suburban millennial in arrested development and trapped in the late ’90s.” I truly do not know how else to explain the recent additions of the extreme sports trio of Hawk, Kelly Slater, and Shaun White, as well as musicians DJ Khaled, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and Shawn Mendes.

Marlow: It’d be fun if Diddy did a Making the Band-style sketch with this year’s nominees engaging in ridiculous tasks to win—although I’m probably dating myself here. This Oscars is already a mess, from its decision to cut 8 categories (including Best Film Editing, or how movies are constructed) from the live telecast to the recent dust-up over West Side Story star Rachel Zegler being denied a ticket (the Academy ultimately caved and made her a presenter). Its Wikipedia “Controversies” section is probably longer than a New Yorker essay. And if all that weren’t enough, the Academy dropped that new slate of Oscar presenters mere hours after the Schumer-Zelensky idea was floated. Who are they trying to appeal to here? Gen Z has no idea who Tony Hawk or Kelly Slater are. Are they trying to appeal to 40-year-olds who actually grew up with these extreme sports athletes? Are they trying to turn the Oscars into the MTV Rock N’ Jock B-Ball Jam?

Kevin: If the goal is to expand to other sectors of entertainment in order to drum-up interest, why not Olympian Nathan Chen or a name people might care about like LeBron James. Or, I don’t know, Serena and Venus Williams, who have an actual film that was made about them that is nominated for Best Picture?

Marlow: Venus and Serena make perfect sense. Or LeBron. Or MJ. Or Tom Brady. If you’re going to have athletes present at the Oscars, how do you land on Tony Hawk and Kelly Slater?

Kevin: Who are these mythical viewers that producers are chasing who are apparently sitting at home dangling an ultimatum: We will not tune into the Academy Awards unless that skateboarder from that video game I played in middle school is a presenter?

Marlow: Look, I love Tony Hawk. I wore Airwalks once. But he is 53 and was recently the subject of a documentary where his friends were begging him to quit skateboarding because he is too old and broken to do it anymore. And Shaun White? The guy who settled a graphic sexual harassment suit a few years ago? Very progressive choice, Academy! By the way, according to the lawsuit, filed by the drummer of White’s band Bad Things, Rena Zawaideh, “White sent sexually explicit and graphic images to Zawaideh of engorged and erect penises, forced her to watch sexually disturbing videos, including videos sexualizing human fecal matter, and made vulgar sexual remarks to her such as, ‘Don’t forget to suck his balls!’ when commenting on her boyfriend. At one point, White stuck his hands down his pants, approached Zawaideh, and stuck his hands in her face trying to make her smell them.”

Kevin: Hollywood overlooking allegations of sexual misconduct? Doesn’t sound like them at all…

Marlow: But wait, there’s more. “The offending texts sent by White also included arguably racist, explicit images of black men. The complaint further alleged that an intoxicated White attempted to kiss Zawaideh at a Halloween party in October 2010; ‘Another time, White put his buttocks directly in Zawaideh’s face. Still another time, White grabbed Zawaideh’s buttocks shortly after leaving practice for the day.’” You can read more about it here.

Kevin: Yeah, that’s a lot to get into. The sports trio aside, there’s so much that’s baffling about this. Forgive me if I’m underestimating the apparent game-changing pull that Shawn Mendes has, in which legions of Oscars agnostics will suddenly become converts just because the singer presents Best Original Screenplay, or something absurd like that. If the idea of all this is to attract an audience to the show that otherwise wouldn’t watch, it’s unclear to me what purpose this is serving, other than to dig a deeper hole of low expectations that Sunday’s telecast will need to miraculously climb out of.

Marlow: At this point I’m just glad they’re not having Addison Rae on to show off TikTok dance moves—although I’m sure that idea was floated by a clueless Oscar producer during this whole messy process. This is a classic case of boomers desperately striving for hipness. That’s how you get Tony Hawk and Shawn Mendes. I’m not sure how you land on Shawn Mendes when BTS, a group that would actually expand the Oscar viewership by millions and millions of people, is right there. A part of me is curious if the Oscars is having trouble attracting talent this year because they’ve lifted the vaccine requirement for presenters and musical performers, which could prevent an international group like BTS from a country with stricter mandates from attending. Anyway, I guess we should just be glad that Donald Trump—who loves few things more than recapping the Oscars—isn’t making an appearance.

Kevin: I mean, someone would be forgiven for assuming that the casting director for The Masked Singer or Dancing With the Stars has taken over booking for the Academy Awards telecast. There’s part of me that wonders how much of this is some cranky people (me) who are resistant to change (also me) and thought things were fine the way they were (oh, it’s me again!). The Oscars ceremony is a chance to celebrate the year in movies, as in all movies. You can honor stars of huge hits like Spider-Man: No Way Home by inviting them to present, crown rising stars like West Side Star’s Zegler by integrating them into the telecast, and pay homage to screen legends by bringing them back to present prestigious categories.

Marlow: Yes, how are Tom Holland and Zendaya not presenting an Oscar together?

Kevin: The presenter list is the easiest way to add star power and, as such, attract viewers. It’s absurd that, instead, this year’s line-up is so bizarre, and seems to have no finger on the pulse, not just of the year’s nominees and stars, but the movies that anyone cared about on a broader scale. Justin Chang has a great piece in the Los Angeles Times arguing that “the Oscars are embracing better movies” but “the show acts like it’s embarrassed by them.” To me, that couldn’t ring more true, at least by gauging these pre-show decisions. And in the end, the producers and the Academy are mostly embarrassing themselves.