The Oscars gets bro-tastic

Seth MacFarlane put on quite the show last night hosting the Oscars. For a show that could use a dose of relevant humor, he chose a different path–making, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and sizist jokes. And beyond being offensive, they weren’t very funny either–instead awkward and uncomfortable, throwing off the tenor of the Oscars.

The opener, a song about actor lady “boobs” as they can be seen in movies, could have quite possibly been the “creative” concept that the rest of the show aligned around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TWLKP8j0zk

Now that you’ve sat through that, imagine watching the whole awards ceremony! BuzzFeed Shift put together a list of 9 sexist things they picked up on during the show.

In the face of this tacky framing, some shining moments included performances from Jennifer Hudson, Adele, Dame Shirley Bassey, Barbara Streisand and even cameo from the First Lady Michelle Obama to present the award for best picture of the year. And while I hadn’t seen most of the movies that were nominated or won, it was great to see Invisible War and How to Survive a Plague nominated for best documentary (even though neither won, which is sad since they are both very important).

But back to the humor. As a feminist committed to funny, I’m not even that upset about the topics of MacFarlane’s jokes, as I am the way he frames them. In my opinion, the most effective comedy is comedy that “punches up,” so if you find yourself continually falling back on cliched stereotypes, you are either an asshole or have a creative block. (Don’t think it’s possible to be funny and not just make fun of the underdog? Think again.)

UPDATE: The Onion issued an apology.

Apparently, the Onion suffered a similar creative block, 

Well, that’s not funny, really at all. Since, she’s 9 and so that makes her a child and children shouldn’t be called sexist epithets. There were other jokes to be made here, maybe even ones she could have laughed at–BUT NO.

Jokes aside, we here are #teamquvenzhane all day, everyday.