Even with a host, the beginning of an awards show—which takes an audience directly from nattering red carpet hosts and advertisers’ dumb jokes to a live auditorium—is always the most awkward portion of the evening. Which is why, typically, awards shows allow that part to be carried by an enterprising, betuxed comedian, someone who has a masochistic urge to squeeze laughs from an audience that’s just waiting for the speeches to be over.
But this year, after a convoluted Kevin Hart homophobic-tweet debacle, ABC—and its parent company Disney, the studio behind nominees Black Panther and Mary Poppins Returns—opted to proceed without a host. Initially, it sounded like a nightmare scenario: a hostless show had been attempted just once before, with disastrous results. In a boring year—such as the one when Peter Jackson and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won everything—even a mediocre host can provide something else to fixate on.
It did not help that multiple other planned elements of the show created consternation, both within the industry and for those watching from home. The list is long: there was the best-popular-movie fiasco, the cut-from-broadcast-and-then-reinstated categories, the tussle over which songs would be performed live, and even a brief kerfuffle over upending presenter tradition, (which was particularly distressing to last year’s best-supporting-actress winner, Allison Janney).
It seemed, a few times, that this hostless Oscars was going to be a conflagration. Its opening number—a performance of “We Will Rock You” and “We are the Champions” by the remaining members of Queen, with Adam Lambert subbing in for the late Freddie Mercury—was more big than it was good. Still, it was a more rousing start to the proceedings than the tepid monologues of years past. And most importantly, it was fast. Afterward, the Oscars pivoted straight to giving out awards, and advanced through its entire schedule quickly—although several long speeches led the ceremony to run 18 minutes longer than its ambitious but scheduled three-hour run time.
That alone should be enough to pronounce the 2019 telecast a success. But there was more, too: the night held a sense of real excitement about what would happen next, as the lack of one clear front-runner made nearly every category seem like a potential surprise. It felt a bit as if the audience had taken over the awards show; without anyone onstage who was ostensibly in charge, every presenter got to briefly take over the show for the seconds they were onstage. The first category of the night, supporting actress, was presented by the ideal hosting trio of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph. The final award was presented by screen siren Julia Roberts in shocking pink, sealing the show with her million-dollar smile and a soft touch of unimpeachable glamour.
It was, tonally, a lovely arc—especially because the awards also ended up celebrating so many women. And it was fun. We should have guessed that it would be; nothing beats the thrill of improv somehow going right.
As the Oscars drew near, there was much speculation about why hosting has become such an apparently undesirable gig—a thankless role somewhere between circus ringleader and waiter. This unexpectedly raucous show offered an explanation. Normally, the host is a warm body used as a buffer between the industry and the audience. The absence of a host this year was a reminder that this figure can take up an inordinate amount of space—space that isn’t always used particularly well or efficiently, and certainly space that might be better off given to others.
The Oscars have attempted to diversify their hosts, but the typical awards show is still emceed by a white male comedian in a penguin suit. On a night where Spike Lee finally got a competitive Oscar—where Black Panther made history with not just one but two black women winners in categories outside acting—where foreign-language Roma nabbed best director for Alfonso Cuarón, and Rami Malek got the biggest applause for his speech for identifying himself as the child of immigrants—ceding that space and time mattered. I’d go so far as to say that it mattered enormously. It’s telling that many of the power struggles before this awards show revolved around quibbles about who would take up space onstage—and how many of them would be people in the industry trying to do thoughtful and interesting work who are not big-name stars.
The show appeared to be run remarkably well behind the scenes, too. There were no envelope mishaps; the show’s centerpiece, a hotly anticipated reprise of “Shallow” from A Star Is Born, sung by nominees Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, was a tour de force of live direction. The connection between the performers was achingly apparent; the camera crept closer to them so carefully that by the end, the viewer was just as wrapped up in their quiet intimacy as the performers themselves seemed to be. The perennial in-memoriam segment was a John Williams piece conducted, movingly, by celebrity composer Gustavo Dudamel. (Either no one even clapped for their favorite dead person—who were these well-mannered Oscar attendees, and can we have them back next year?—or the show decided to fade out auditorium noise so that the segment would not appear, as it has in years past, to be a popularity contest.)
Even the set was nice—a confection of crystals surrounded by a rippling pediment (unflatteringly compared to Donald Trump’s hair; more charitably, I’d say it looked like icing). In the show’s aspirations to re-create movie magic, it was very Disney—but that aspect of the proceedings was mercifully muffled for the most part, restrained to a Mary Poppins–esque entrance from presenter Keegan-Michael Key and appearances from Marvel stars like Chris Evans and Brie Larson. Instead, the magic arose from set pieces that showcased talent, craft, and impressive performers—not, as is so often the case, a hand-waving montage about inclusion and diversity.
Did outrage do this? Possibly. Outcry against the Academy’s decision-making may have shaped this ceremony more than any other in the past; each unilateral decision created, let’s say, a spirited discussion about its merits. The popular Oscar got shelved; the sidelined categories were restored; Hart went to the gym during the ceremony; and Janney appeared onstage, with Gary Oldman, to hand Malek his trophy. It felt like the People’s Oscars, even if some of the movies that won revealed serious flaws in the ongoing discussion about how media reflects and propagates broken narratives about race and sexuality. Not every Oscars will have such an unpredictable slate, sure. But doing without a host showed us a different kind of Hollywood: a Hollywood where the audience calls the shots.
