With his tired frat-boy opening number, I Saw Your Boobs, Oscars host Seth MacFarlane reveals how little he thinks of women, writes Sarah Hughes
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When the Oscars booked Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and Ted, to host the Oscars they probably expected a bit of 1950s style Hollywood crooning with the odd near-the-knuckle joke thrown in: the sort of thing to make an A-list audience wince without leading to mass walkouts.
What they got was rather less palatable, as MacFarlane, whether intentionally or otherwise, spent the evening demonstrating how little he thinks of women.
The opening number I Saw Your Boobs, in which MacFarlane announced: "Meryl Streep, we saw your boobs in Silkwood/ Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive/Angelina Jolie we saw your boobs in Gia/ They made us feel excited and alive," was supposed to work as a commentary on how men view women in film. "Look at us guys," MacFarlane was saying. "Isn't it funny that we only watch movies to stare at women's breasts, nudge, nudge, snigger, snigger."
In reality it was a return to the sort of tired frat-boy humour of Johnny Carson and Bob Hope, two heroes of MacFarlane's. And while the stony-faced reactions of name-checked actors Charlize Theron and Naomi Watts were pre-recorded and part of the "joke", US reports suggested that Kathryn Bigelow and Helen Hunt were among those to look unimpressed on the night as MacFarlane concluded: "And Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures and Jude and Hamlet and Titanic and Iris and Little Children and The Reader and whatever you're shooting right now."
Neither Winslet nor Scarlett Johansson, singled out for leaked phone pictures, have yet commented. But outraged viewers took to Twitter to note that many of those named by MacFarlane, from Jodie Foster in The Accused and Halle Berry in Monster's Ball to Angelina Jolie in Gia and Charlize Theron in Monster were playing rape victims. Jezebel writer Lindy West tweeted: "The theme was Seth MacFarlane's fever dreams about being an old-timey crooner mixed with cries for help about his problems with women, right?"
West wasn't far off because the We Saw Your Boobs jokefest wasn't even MacFarlane's biggest (all puns intended) boob of the night. Nor was it the moment he labelled Jennifer Aniston a stripper – "Our next two presenters, at least one is honest about being a former exotic dancer. Please welcome Channing Tatum and Jennifer Aniston." Or the crack about Chris Brown beating up Rihanna ("This is the story of a man fighting to get back his woman who has been subjected to unthinkable violence, or as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a date movie.") Or even the bit when he referred to Jessica Chastain's role in Zero Dark Thirty as "a celebration of every woman's innate inability to never ever let anything go". Yes, that's right, the host of the Oscars made a "Take My Wife" joke. In 2013.
No, MacFarlane's worst joke came when he mentioned nine-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, one of the best actress nominees, concluding: "To give you an idea how young she is. It'll be 16 years before she's too old for Clooney."
His supporters will claim that joke is more on Clooney than Wallis, but seriously: the man made a sex joke about a nine-year-old. We're heading into the realms of Charlotte Church and countdown clocks here.
It all added up to a spectacularly depressing night and one which was about as far from the warmth and wit of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey's double-act at last month's Golden Globes as can be imagined. And we all saw the boob.
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