Word: hosted
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When I heard that Ellen DeGeneres was going to host the Oscars, I thought, They're sure playing it safe. In 2005 and 2006 the Academy went edgy--well, Oscar edgy--with hosts Chris Rock and Jon Stewart. This year they got likable Ellen, Finding Nemo Ellen, good-natured, dancing Ellen...
...remarkable how unremarkable it is that a gay person is hosting the Oscars. True, it's not as if we lack for gay people watching the Oscars, and DeGeneres did host the Emmys in 2001. But the Academy Awards is something else; with the Super Bowl and American Idol, it's one of our last three true mass-media rituals. Its host is the de facto M.C. of mainstream America. And it's not as if homosexuality has faded as an issue. When gay people unite a mass of straight people, it's usually for defense-of-marriage ballot issues...
...DeGeneres is not the only lesbian host who's having a great year. Last fall Rosie O'Donnell took over The View like the loudest third-grader at a school recital and made it a must-see--building buzz, tweaking Donald Trump and waving her sexuality like a semaphore flag. This doesn't mean America is about to elect Barney Frank President. But it means that in the intimate genre of TV hosting, there's an open seat for gay people at the national coffee table...
That's not to say a gay man couldn't host the Oscars (an out gay man--Rock Hudson co-hosted in 1973), but it's hard to think offhand of one who could. Lesbians simply don't inspire the kind of social-sexual unease that gay men do. Two chicks kissing is a male fantasy, a sweeps stunt. Two dudes kissing is gross-out humor. It's Sacha Baron Cohen open-mouthing Will Ferrell in Talladega Nights. It's a million Brokeback Mountain jokes. It's the Snickers Super Bowl ad, in which two mechanics locked lips while sharing...
...anything, DeGeneres' sexual orientation may help her as a host. To straight women--who are socialized to be more intimate with one another anyway--she's a kindred spirit and funny pal, without the complicating factor of sexual competition. To straight men--if they think about her--she's a sharp comic with a hot girlfriend (actress Portia de Rossi). What guy has a problem with that scenario...