And now, GIFs of celebrities reacting to Chris Rock’s Oscars monologue
Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony started off with 10 minutes of pure fire, courtesy of host Chris Rock.
As the #OscarsSoWhite backlash has gained momentum—for a second consecutive year, not a single actor of color was nominated for an Academy Award—fans have eagerly awaited what Rock would have to say about Hollywood diversity during his opening monologue.
We’re happy to report that the legendary comic, who first served as the Oscars master of ceremonies back in 2005, didn’t hold back. Here’s how the stars in attendance reacted to some of Rock’s sharpest lines.
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“This is the wildest, craziest Oscars to ever host, because we’ve got all this controversy. No black nominees. And people are like, ‘Chris, you should boycott. Chris, you should quit. You should quit.’ How come it’s only unemployed people who tell you to quit something?”
“I thought about quitting. I thought about it real hard, but I realized, they’re gonna have the Oscars anyway. They’re not gonna cancel the Oscars because I quit. And the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart.”
“Why this Oscars? It’s the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole ‘no black nominees’ thing has happened at least 71 other times.”
“You got to figure that it happened in the ’50s and the ’60s. In the ’60s, one of those years Sidney [Poitier] didn’t put out a movie. I’m sure there were no black nominees some of those years, say ’62, ’63. And black people did not protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time.”
“We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer.”