I am no Oscars-host expert, but I am sure Seth MacFarlane made a record number of non-politically
correct jokes last night. Some were downright offensive, I thought.
First Lady Michelle Obama made a surprise cameo by announcing the Best Picture award via a video link. Movie producer Harvey Weinstein is said to have arranged it. My first reaction was – oh my, is this not going overboard given that Argo* is about the US government, Hollywood, and the link between the two? And of course political commentators on the right made a lot of hay about the First Lady’s appearance at the Oscars. But as someone said today, she is everyone’s First Lady, the 2012 election is just behind us, she did not invite herself, and Ronald Reagan and other presidents have also made cameo appearances at the Oscars.
*[From Wikipedia] Argo is a 2012 American fictionalized thriller film directed by Ben Affleck. This dramatization is adapted from the book The Master of Disguise by CIA operative Tony Mendez, and Joshuah Berman’s 2007 Wired article ‘The Great Escape’ about the ‘Canadian Caper’ in which Mendez led the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran, Iran, during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.