LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Oscars host Seth MacFarlane said Tuesday there is “no way” he will do the show again, after his performance was widely criticized as offensive and dull.
The “Family Guy” creator insisted it was fun to have hosted the 85th Academy Awards on Sunday, despite media and online critics panning the show, notably for jokes about actresses’ breasts and Jews in Hollywood.
The choice of MacFarlane as Oscars host was seen as the latest attempt to attract younger viewers by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the august industry body which organizes Tinseltown’s biggest awards show.
Argo director Ben Affleck accepts the Oscar for Best Movie onstage at the 85th Annual Academy Awards on February 24, 2013 in Hollywood, California. AFP PHOTO/
Viewing figures suggested that may have worked — the US domestic audience was up 11 percent, to just over 40 million, according to the Nielsen media analysis and polling company.
But MacFarlane posted a Twitter exchange with a fan saying he won’t do it again. “RT @CrusePhoto: @SethMacFarlane Would you host the #Oscars again if asked? // No way. Lotta fun to have done it, though,” he tweeted.
The comic, who also created potty-mouthed movie bear Ted, had said before the show that he would probably not do it again, telling an interviewer last week: “Even if it goes great, I just don’t think that I could do this again.
“It’s just too much with everything else that I have to do. I’m happy to be doing it and I will be thrilled to have done it, assuming I get out of there in one piece, but I really think this is a one-time thing for me.”
Critics slammed MacFarlane’s opening segment as over-long — and in particular blasted a song called “We Saw Your Boobs,” which listed the actresses who had appeared topless on screen.
A sketch featuring Ted provoked some of the harshest attacks, notably for jokes about Jewish control of Hollywood. The Anti-Defamation League, an anti-Semitism watchdog, blasted them as “offensive and not remotely funny.”
On his Twitter feed Tuesday, MacFarlane also posted a link to an “interesting press article about the press anger over the Boobs song,” and in another tweet noted: “My cat said the show went well.”
