It may not be as prominent and
foremost as all the other media awarding ceremony events happening at this time
of year, but the Academy Awards continue to soldier on, with less than a decade
left before it turns a hundred years old. For its 92nd edition, to
be held next month, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is
planning to implement a few changes to the program, from a slight change in
traditional dates to the naming of a category or two. But they are keeping one
new element from the previous Oscars ceremony: no host.
CNN tells us that the 92nd Academy Awards, honoring the
best that cinema had to offer back in 2019, will once again make do without a
host. This development was made known on Wednesday, January 8, at the TV
Critics Association press tour by Karey Burke, president of ABC Entertainment.
If so, this would actually be the third time in Oscar Awards history that the ceremony
made do without a master of ceremonies. The 61nd edition back in March
1989 also went host-less, relying on presenters for each category. Burke
remarked that ABC and AMPAS merely wanted to repeat “what worked for us last
year.”
Other changes that will be
implemented in this year’s Oscars include the alteration of the ceremony date.
For over a decade before, the awards night would fall sometime in late
February. This time the Oscars will come earlier in that month, on February 8.
There is also the renaming, approved by the Academy in April 2019, of the “Best
Foreign Language Film” into “Best International Feature Film.” This category
will allow animated movies and even documentaries from other countries for
nomination, with the requirement that the majority of dialogue be in any language
but English.
Back in 2018, the decision was
made to forego having a host in the 91st Oscars the following
February when their selected emcee, comedian Kevin Hart, bowed out from the
obligation. This came in light of publicized past jokes made online by Hart
that was construed to have anti-gay language and slurs. The resurfacing of old
offensive statements from the comedian was believed to have been perpetrated by
parties hostile to the gradual politicization of the awarding ceremony by
dialogue from past hosts and presenters.
Interestingly, while the first
host-less Oscars (done as a deliberate choice) in 1989 was considered one of
the worst-rated awards, the ceremony from last year (done due to the departure
of the selected host) was a marked improvement in ratings compared to the 2018
edition. The latest Academy Awards will air on ABC February 9.
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