Whoopi, Dave, Billy or Pig, Does it Matter Who Hosts?

Imagine the pressures on Whoopi Goldberg when she hosts tonight’s Academy Awards telecast on ABC.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson last week publicly urged African Americans attending the Oscars to wear a rainbow ribbon or something else symbolic of opposition to Hollywood’s “race exclusion and cultural violence.” Thus, a bit of a storm may be brewing.

If Goldberg, who is black, does wear a symbol, some will accuse her of being spineless and bending to pressure from Jackson and a variety of groups calling for demonstrations against the awards in Los Angeles and other major cities.

Should she appear symbol-less, some will charge her with ignoring her roots and being insensitive to the movie-biz plight of other African Americans who not only haven’t made it big, as she has, but who believe they aren’t being allowed even to participate because of skin color.

If that weren’t enough, there’s even more pressure on Goldberg. What if, in addition to being symbol-less, she’s also joke-less? As someone still known primarily as a comedian, she’s expected to be funny. It’s in the bold print of her contract. Yes, lots of luck there. She wasn’t funny, or even very energetic, in tripping over her Oscarcast assignment in 1994.

Maybe Goldberg should do what some zillionaire professional athletes do when something isn’t going quite their way. They don’t show up for work.

That would be funny.

Not that the prospect of one-liners, or of laughing or not laughing, is critical when deciding whether to watch the Academy Awards.

A little poll here. Raise your hands, all of you who will be watching tonight because Goldberg is host. Uno, dos, tres. . . .

As I thought, hardly anyone.

And those who won’t watch because of her?

Same number.

How many watched last year because David Letterman was host? Uno, dos--and yes, you can stop waving because I see your hand, Jay--tres.

And in previous years during the ‘90s when Billy Crystal was host? Keep holding them up. I see, I see.

Get those hands up once again if you would have tuned in the first Oscar ceremony in 1929 (which, you may recall, wasn’t televised) because the hosts were Douglas Fairbanks and William C. deMille? All right, gotcha.

And finally, would you be more inclined to watch if tonight’s co-hosts were, say, Fidel Castro and, um, Pig from “Babe”? All right, throw in Michael Jackson, too.

And less inclined?

Uh huh. Whoopi, Dave, Billy, Doug, Bill, Fidel, Pig and Michael--about the same. It makes a difference to only a very few.

All of which proves not only my point but also (you’re right) that some shameless TV columnists will resort to writing about anything to fill some space.

What is my point? That we don’t watch or not watch the Oscars because of who is hosting. Oh, hosts very definitely have an impact on these shows once they begin. As someone whose opinion I respect enormously (me) once wrote, “So goes the host, so goes the show.” Thus, it made for nicer viewing that Crystal was pretty funny for three straight, and blander viewing when Goldberg didn’t show much. And oh, yes, Letterman had that nightmarish Oprah/Uma moment last year--thanks for the cue-card reminder, Jay--that eclipsed segments of the telecast in which he was funny.

I suspect that I’m pretty much like most other viewers, though. The Jackson-driven debate over the movie industry’s race policies has my heart pumping a little faster in anticipation of tonight, given the presence of Goldberg, the role of African American Quincy Jones as executive producer and the prospect that someone will make an unscripted, unceremonious, uncensored or even unintelligible speech on the issue (the Oscars are live TV, after all) that will exhilarate some Americans and infuriate others.

Moreover, another African American, Oprah Winfrey, is a designated official greeter for the Oscars. What symbol, if any, will she be wearing while welcoming fellow celebrities?

Very interesting.

Yet Whoopi, Shmoopi. Oprah, Shmoprah. Uma, Shmuma. Even if my job didn’t require it, I’d be watching anyway because the Oscars are the Oscars (as opposed to the schleppy Emmys being the schleppy Emmys). And most of all because, after going on a movie binge in 1995-96, I’ve seen nearly all of the nominated movies and performers.

That’s the key, right? Most of us are closet tabloidniks who love being voyeurs of celebrity Oscar attendees to some extent, and movie stars still project a mystique that’s unmatched elsewhere in the performing arts. But our level of interest in the telecast depends not on the number of celebs in our cross-hairs but mostly on the number of nominees we’ve seen on the screen in movie theaters. Thus do we pull for our favorites and feel that we have a personal stake in who wins and loses.

But not much stake at all in who hosts the show.