What’s the hardest job in Hollywood?
You might think it’s handling PR chores for Jonathan Majors or Ezra Miller. Good guess, but wrong.
Try hosting a major awards show telecast.
The greats made it look easy in days gone by. Think Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal and Steve Martin. They entertained millions, kept the material clean and enhanced the aura of the shows in question and their comic brands.
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And, best of all? No one complained the next day about a joke that “punched down” or targeted a protected group or class.
Now? It’s the cruelest job in Tinsel Town, a gig with more fine print than a bank loan.
Jo Koy learned this lesson the hard way.
The affable comic, known for humorously recreating his mother’s life lessons on stage, is a serious stand-up draw. He routinely plays arenas, not clubs, and last year headlined his first feature comedy, “Easter Sunday.”
He was an unconventional choice to host the recent Golden Globes telecast given he lacked the name recognition of more established stars, but he was hardly a poor selection on paper.
On stage was a different matter.
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Koy only had two-plus weeks to prepare for the gig, but he didn’t use that time wisely. His best jokes proved mediocre, he worked blue in amateurish fashion and, worst of all, threw his writing team under the bus mid-monologue when he knew he was bombing.
“You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up. I wrote some of these, and those are the ones you’re gonna laugh at.”
That’s the kind of flop-sweat moment that’s hard to forgive and forget, especially for his writing team.
And, naturally, critics skewered Koy’s handiwork. The monologue also triggered Swiftie Nation, which howled over an innocent Koy quip about the NFL’s wall-to-wall coverage of Taylor Swift’s sudden interest in the Kansas City Chiefs.
The joke didn’t even target Swift, but the fact that it was Swift-adjacent was more than enough.
Koy’s troubles are hardly the only reason awards show gigs are so, to use the woke Left’s terminology, “problematic.” That helps explain why Chris Rock, Ali Wong and the “Smartless” podcast trio – Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes – turned the Globes hosting gig down previous to Koy.
Wong may be a rising star thanks to her stand-up chops and sturdy work in the Netflix series “Beef,” but she wisely stood down.
Rock, one of the best stand-up comics around, wants no part of the gig even though he handled the task twice already (the 2005 and 2016 Oscars). That was then, before Cancel Culture made every gag a potential woke landmine.
Rock also declined the chance to host the 2023 Oscars, roughly a year after Will Smith slapped him on stage for telling a joke about the actor’s wife.
It’s become the new Hollywood badge of honor – turning down the chance to host an awards gala.
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Dwayne Johnson similarly declined the 2019 Oscars ceremony gig, citing a prior engagement. Right. And he hasn’t publicly campaigned for the gig since.
Comic superstar Kevin Hart famously landed the Oscar-hosting gig and lost it in record time in 2018 after crude, decade-old gay jokes “resurfaced.” The Oscars even went host-free for three straight years (2019-2021) following HartGate, an acknowledgment of how tricky the gig suddenly is.
How many comedians could survive the woke vetting?
There’s another reason comedians would rather bomb at a Hell’s Kitchen bar than play to an awards show crowd. Said crowd keeps getting smaller. Snagging an Emmy or Oscar-hosting gig once meant performing before a massive TV audience. That could turn a comedian into a superstar overnight.
Show ratings are generally on the decline, alas. Even the Globes, which enjoyed a strong uptick from the 2023 edition, is still far below recent years. The 2020 edition drew a hearty 18.4 million viewers, the final year before COVID-19 and scandals rocked the organization.
And then there’s the expectations that go with the job.
That includes using the bully pulpit to advance progressive causes. For veteran hosts like Jimmy Kimmel, that’s a no-brainer. It’s what he does each night on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Others may not feel as comfortable going in that direction.
It could explain why Johnson is steering clear of any awards show stage. He has political aspirations and doesn’t want to trigger half the country.
Koy’s monologue, while a touch woke, avoided politics entirely. He might have gotten a softer landing had he lobbed a few barbs at Donald Trump or other GOP favorites.
Maybe.
He would have gotten a bigger rhetorical beating if he took some swings at President Joe Biden, though.
The only steady hosts these days come from late-night TV. Both Jimmy Kimmel and Trevor Noah keep getting tapped for the gigs, from the Oscars to the Grammys. They’re both aggressively liberal, which appeases the industry’s tastemakers along with media critics.
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Each lives in the belly of the Hollywood beast, so they understand how far they can push their quips.
The industry doesn’t care if they gain or lose viewers. Ratings matter less than The Hollywood-approved messaging. Why else hire deeply divisive comedians who chase Red State audiences away?
Plus, if ratings truly mattered, Ricky Gervais would host the Oscars and Dave Chappelle would tackle the Emmy and Grammy awards. The industry would rather play to a smaller crowd than give the public what it wants.
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Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at @HollywoodInToto.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.