It’s official. Chris Rock will host the 2016 Academy Awards:
Look who's back. #Oscars. pic.twitter.com/7TkkrDpSJM
— Chris Rock (@chrisrock) October 21, 2015
This will be the 88th Academy Awards and will take place on Sunday, February 28, 2016.
At last year’s show, the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag was popular among activists protesting a lack of African-American nominees. Did the Academy pick Rock because of this?
I wonder if #OscarsSoWhite will get a bit more melanin in its categories now that Chris is hosting.
— Formerly MediaMogulRCJ (@RachelCJohnson) October 21, 2015
Let's see @chrisrock kill #OscarsSoWhite in 2016 once and for all! So happy to have him back. Sean Penn better calm the eff down.
— Sam (@saaamohhh) October 21, 2015
@blackvoices Headline: #Oscarssowhite brings in Black Host!
— Jibril Sulaiman (@datdudejibril) October 21, 2015
After Last year's #OscarssoWhite it has been officially confirmed that Chris Rock will host the 2016 Oscars!
— Tracy F. King (@tracyfking) October 21, 2015
But we need to point something out: since 1996, only 5.5 women have hosted the Oscars. Whoopi Goldberg has hosted the gala evening 3 times, Ellen DeGeneres twice and Anne Hathaway co-hosted with James Franco.
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What will Jennifer Lawrence say about this? Where’s the equality, Hollywood?
Time to start an #OscarsSoMale hashtag we think!
Flashback. At last year’s show, there was a little online battle between the #OscarsSoWhite crowd and the equal-pay for women crowd led by white actress Patricia Arquette who used her award speech to highlight the issue:
‘Diversity’ fail: Patricia Arquette’s lady parts pandering falls flat with #OscarsSoWhite crowd
We’ll certainly see both sides again this year thanks to Jennifer Lawrence’s outspokenness on pay and the fact that there just aren’t many African-American actors and actresses in films that could get nominated this year.
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