My sister and I love the Oscars. This year we decided to throw an Oscar party…for three. It was my sister, my mom and me. We loved it. It’s great to be somewhat involved in a party where you can look at pretty dresses, and weird ones, from the comfort of your own couch while eating fatty snacks in your PJs.
I wasn’t sure what to expect this year, other than putting on five extra pounds, since Seth MacFarlane was hosting the Oscars. He is best known for the movie Ted, which I enjoyed and the show Family Guy. I have only seen clips of Family Guy and while I think it’s a clever and funny show, I have an aversion to watching cartoons as an adult.
I knew what to expect with MacFarlane, and I feared he wouldn’t live up to my expectations as I didn’t love his Oscar promos. I wanted a show! My expectation was that he’d at least match Ricky Gervais’s Golden Globes performance the first time he hosted.
I’m not a fan of anyone taking themselves seriously, especially celebrities. It’s one thing to take your job seriously, as I would expect of my doctor or the cops protecting my city, but when celebrities elevate themselves to god-status, they’re just asking to get knocked back down to earth.
That is what I expected MacFarlane to do, and I think he succeeded. I could have easily watched a few more hours of MacFarlane unleashing on Hollywood. The producers of the Oscars hired MacFarlane to get high ratings and it worked.
They knew what they were getting themselves into hiring a man who doesn’t play to political correctness and views any subject as fair game for a joke. So if you’re in Hollywood, and you know your business, you should have shared my expectation.
All gloves were off when the first punch was thrown, pardon the phrasing. MacFarlane’s first hard joke:
He warned us. I was so excited for more. I’m not mean-spirited; in fact, I make fun of myself all the time and don’t mind being teased. Celebrities thrive on our attention and, on Oscar night, they have it. How could I not be giddy when one among them calls them out on their quirks or, dare I say, insane behavior.
If you want to see all of MacFarlane’s jokes, you can view some of them here, but the bit that has people still talking is actually a song he performed cleverly titled, “We Saw Your Boobs.”
I thought the song was funny. We’ve all been told time and time again that men don’t mature past their teen years and MacFarlane’s song is all the evidence we need.
I wasn’t offended, but I’m sure someone could point out I wasn’t the butt of the joke. Yet others who weren’t mentioned in the song found it degrading to women. The women speaking out against MacFarlane identify themselves as feminists.
By definition, a feminist is someone who supports feminism. The definition of feminism is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes according to Merriam-Webster.
By that definition, aren’t most of us in America feminists? Well pretend to be. I would go as far as to guess that if one were to have an honest conversation with MacFarlane, he too would stand for feminism. You see, his song was a JOKE!
Have we really gotten to the point of such severe political correctness that we can’t laugh at a boob song? That wasn’t even the worst of MacFarlane’s jokes that night. Two of the actresses who have taken issue with MacFarlane’s figurative spit on all womankind are Jamie Lee Curtis and Geena Davis.
According to EW.com, Geena Davis thought the whole show was tone-deaf. “It’s a shame that that triumph was enveloped in an awards ceremony containing disrespect for women,” she said.
Jamie Lee Curtis wrote an entire post on the Huffington Post stating emphatically how offended she was, especially as an actress who has bared her breasts. She was told to bare her breasts, mostly by men, to satisfy roles significant to her career. She didn’t want to do it, but she did what was asked of her. Oh, and she also said next we’ll be tuning in for public executions.
Again, Jamie Lee Curtis was not mentioned in MacFarlane’s song–at all! She is offended on behalf of actresses who were mentioned, even though said actresses have not come out saying they were offended.
Furthermore, her point seems to be that it is demeaning to women to point out they’ve shown their goods to the entire world, but not demeaning to have shown said goods. Lastly, it is for art’s sake Jamie Lee Curtis and countless other actresses have appeared topless in films and television, yet it is not art to sing a song at the Oscars. Or it is art dependent on the lyrics?
If you don’t want someone to point out you showed your boobs, then don’t show your boobs.
Let’s not call men out for calling us out on our actions. We’re not above reproach and clearly not above ridicule. I don’t think the intent of that song was to pick on women; it was just a funny juvenile joke.
Why did he pick on women and not men? Because saying boobs is funny to an adolescent male. Man parts are boring.
So have a laugh. We don’t need to be so uptight. If you get fired for being a woman, that is something that should outrage you. A boob joke is just that…a boob joke.
Featured Image by Marcin Wichary on Flickr
Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
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