From Will Smith to Cut Categories: How the Oscars Can Recover After Its Most Controversial Year Ever

variety.com:

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment WriterAsk 100 people in the entertainment industry what the Academy Awards telecast should entail, and you’re bound to get 100 different opinions.

But it’s safe to say that all 100 would agree that what happened at the Oscars on Sunday was not the way to go.There was, of course, the specter of Will Smith smacking Chris Rock on the air, in retaliation for Rock’s “G.I.

Jane 2” joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who is bald due to alopecia, a diagnosis she revealed in 2018. The incident, followed by Smith’s regretful-yet-defiant acceptance speech for best actor, vaporized excitement inside the Dolby Theatre and devoured any conversation about the Oscars online that was not about What Will Smith Just Did on Live TV. (Smith apologized to Rock and the Academy in a statement on Monday.) “I think it’s incredibly disappointing,” says one Academy member, who spoke anonymously to remain candid. “It’s the last thing the Oscars need.”Truly, Smith hitting Rock was far from the only controversy plaguing this year’s Academy Awards.

After last year’s disastrously low-rated, low-energy pandemic telecast — with just 10.5 million viewers, according to Live + Same Day Nielsen data — this year’s show seemed to carry the existential, make-it-or-break-it burden of saving the Oscars from permanent irrelevance.It’s what led the Academy Board of Governors and telecast producers Will Packer and Shayla Cowan to tape acceptance speeches from eight categories, a move that convulsed the industry into weeks of angry recriminations and outright protest.