Many pundits saw Ellen DeGeneres’s selection as this year’s Oscar host as “safe.” She could be funny and mocking, but she could play by the rules. She was also a time-tested choice who had proven she could hold her own on Hollywood’s biggest night.
But the Academy may have made a bold choice in picking DeGeneres after all. With Tina Fey and Amy Poehler serving as Golden Globe hosts this year, 2014 marks the first time in nearly 10 years where two of the four major awards shows have been hosted by women.
This is skewed slightly because the Globes have not traditionally had a host in the way the Oscars always have, but Ellen, Tina and Amy likewise joined People’s Choice hosts Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings, the stars of “Two Broke Girls,” as part of this female fronted awards circuit.
Fey and Poehler managed to bring in the highest ratings in 10 years for the Hollywood Foreign Press, and they’ll be back again next year to make out with more Irish rock stars and continue sending fruit baskets to Matt Damon’s house.
As for DeGeneres, the Oscar ratings have always been more fickle, dependent on the movies nominated and its placement in the awards calendar more so than its host. Her ratings were only fifth best in just the last decade of middling ratings, but she’s fared much better as host of the Emmys, where her stints placed 2nd, 3rd and 5th since 2000, behind only Conan O’Brien and Neil Patrick Harris.
Having a female awards host is exactly the kind of image women watching from home need. Equally strong hosts like Whoopi Goldberg (Oscars), Jane Lynch (Emmys) and Queen Latifah (Grammys) are examples of how women can be talented showmen (show-women?) and more than just a pretty face or gown. Too much scrutiny is given to fashion rather than performance during awards season, and someone like DeGeneres shows that she can play on the same stage as the boys and pick fun at them too.
And we need more of it, because the Oscar ceremony is still seen as a man’s job. A woman, either individually or with other hosts, has only hosted 21 times in its 86-year history. Bob Hope alone hosted 19 times.
Change in Hollywood starts here. The last poll from the MPAA released in March of 2013 confirmed that just over half of all moviegoers are women, and yet in the same year in a Women’s Media Center study, only 28 percent of speaking characters in the top grossing movies were women. And yet on Oscar night the Ricky Gervaises, Seth McFarlanes and Billy Crystals of the world are little different than the faces seen on the silver screen.
I’m not sure how Ellen will do at tomorrow’s Oscars or if ratings will rise, but I know that debate over the right Oscar host and how to fix the broadcast will continue forever. So maybe the Academy should follow the HFPA’s lead and invite Ellen back right now.