DeGeneres to host Oscars for second time

NEW YORK: So long, Seth MacFarlane.
A year after the “Family Guy” creator’s crude brand of humor drew widespread criticism, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has decided to go with a much safer name to host next year’s Oscars telecast — daytime talk-show favorite Ellen DeGeneres.
“I am so excited to be hosting the Oscars for the second time,” DeGeneres said in a statement; she also had the job in 2007. “You know what they say — the third time’s the charm.” Known for her cheery demeanor and love of practical jokes, DeGeneres has a style that sharply contrasts with MacFarlane’s often controversial frat-boy shtick.
During this spring’s ceremony, MacFarlane described “Django Unchained” as “the story of a man fighting to get back his woman, who’s been subjected to unspeakable violence — or, as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a date movie.”
DeGeneres also breaks the cycle of three years of headline-making host choices, starting with the unfortunate pairing in 2011 of James Franco and Anne Hathaway. The next year, producer Brett Ratner stepped down after a fury over homophobic comments he made, with his host, Eddie Murphy, abruptly quitting, as well.
“I think this year there really may have been a desire not to make an inflammatory choice and to let the news about the Oscars be the movies,” said Mark Harris, author of “Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood,” who covers the Oscars for Grantland.com.
Plus, having a female host could make up for the thrashing that MacFarlane received for his jokes about women in Hollywood (“Lot of beautiful women here tonight. And for those of you who gave themselves the flu two weeks ago to ‘get there,’ it paid off.”), which many derided as misogynistic.
“I would really not underestimate the degree to which the academy took seriously the backlash to MacFarlane from women last year,” Harris said. “It wasn’t just bloggers or journalists, it was a number of women in the industry who publicly said, ‘I have a problem with the movie year being represented by this tone.’. . . [The academy] really listens to that kind of stuff.”