The Hall of Fame—and of Shame—of Oscars Hosts

18:19Michael Schulman:You know, when I was working on Oscar Wars and going through 100 years of Oscar history and focusing on particular years, it's always so interesting to me how way in hindsight you'll see how the slate of Oscar nominees does reflect the times and the politics and what Hollywood is going through, but in a kind of indirect way. I mean, just to throw out an example, the best picture race in 1976 was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, Barry Lyndon, Nashville, and Jaws. I like that it's like five incredible bangers. Just like – That to me is the best line of Oscar history. But they're all kind of – they share certain similarities.

19:07Michael Schulman:I mean, they're anti-authoritarian movies. Like they came out, you know, in the heat of the Watergate scandal. And yet they're not about Nixon in the way that, you know, all the president's men would be. But they have something. I mean, you know, Once Over the Cuckoo's Nest is about like this corrupt authority figure as is the, you know, the mayor in Jaws. And there's a – and, you know, Nashville is about sort of America looking forward to the bicentennial and something being kind of off. You know, and then I think the presence of Jaws also signals how the new Hollywood of the 70s was about to end and become the new blockbuster era of Jaws and Star Wars, etc.

19:46Michael Schulman:So that's how I try to read, you know, any given Oscar year. It's not going to tell you exactly what's going on in Hollywood or in the country, but it's going to reflect something kind of simmering under the surface. And that's what I think makes them so interesting.

20:05Vinson Cunningham:When we're back, our favorite hits and misses of Oscar's hosts. Without giving it away, can you please tease yours? Michael. It's a wonderful night for Oscar. We'll get there. This is Critics at Large from The New Yorker.

20:28Vinson Cunningham:This week on The New Yorker Radio Hour,

20:30Michael Schulman:a Democrat and a Republican in Congress on how the immigration crackdown is changing America. They're going to see vast swaths of our workforce disappear. They're going to see our economy contract.

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22:11Alexandra Schwartz:I'm Vincent Cunningham.

22:12Vinson Cunningham:I'm Nomi Fry. I'm Alex Schwartz, and we host Critics at Large from The New Yorker.

22:17Alexandra Schwartz:Each week we pick a starting point. The new novel you can't stop thinking about, the movie everybody's seeing this weekend, and we kind of go galaxy brain with it.

22:26Vinson Cunningham:Right, we take the ideas at the center of these things and trace them across history, across mediums, all to get to the bottom of why this particular text is important right now in politics and culture and also in your everyday life. We go highbrow, we go lowbrow, we go everything in between.

22:43Alexandra Schwartz:Food culture to meme culture, Charlie XCX to Toni Morrison. K-pop to the Kennedys. From horror movies to heated rivalry.

22:51Vinson Cunningham:From the Oscars to the Met Gala. The Golden Bachelor to Wuthering Heights, great expectations to desperate housewives.

22:57Alexandra Schwartz:That's what we're talking about over here. We're having fun. It's Critics at Large from The New Yorker, every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

23:14Vinson Cunningham:We have been talking about the Oscars race soon to be decided. So let's turn now to this figure of the host at the Oscars. Conan O 'Brien hosted for the first time last year, and he's at it again. We were all in the room except for Michael. But the three of us were in the room watching Conan last year. What did you guys think of the performance?

23:34Alexandra Schwartz:Well, Michael was in the room watching. I was in the balcony. He was in the auditorium.

23:39Vinson Cunningham:True, true. So, Michael, what was it like in the room?

23:41Michael Schulman:As he will be again this year. Brag and tell us. In his tuxedo. That's right. No, I mean, he killed in the room, as I think he did on television. Everyone was really happy. You know, it's a hard job. And to find someone who really nailed it like Conan and brought a lot of joy and silliness to the role, people were pleased. A complete unknown. A real pain.

24:10Michael Schulman:Nosferatu.

24:14Michael Schulman:These are just some of the names I was called on the red carpet. Yeah, I think a sense of relief is like something that I at least experienced. It's like, OK, this is a person with real comedic chops. It was his first time hosting, but he knows the job. He knows he's had many years to hone the role of being a host. He knows how to hold a room. And he's a showman, too. You know, he sang a song about, like, not wanting to make the ceremony too long while, of course, making the ceremony longer. I won't waste time. I won't waste time. There's 23 awards to give its whole time to perfection. To waste time on some idiocy would be a dereliction.

25:03I won't waste time. Yeah, just, like, fun and fun. He's smart. He's just smart. Yeah.

25:09Alexandra Schwartz:And also, I mean, I think it's also just like a popularity contest. You know? What do you mean? The host king. It has to be somebody that everybody kind of likes and respects and therefore gets away with some of the— You can't just be a blind Tiresias, you know, ruining the mood of everybody in the Greek place. Like, you got to kind of be— Charisma. It's called charisma. You got to be kind of a prom king. And Conan is in the middle of a sort of re-appreciation cycle. I mean, last year, shortly after he hosted the Oscars, he was also – the Mark Twain prize in comedy was bestowed upon him at the Kennedy Center.

25:48Alexandra Schwartz:His peers are in a moment, too, of saying, wow, what a career. Rightly.

25:52Michael Schulman:And also, there was a kind of revenge factor because he was, you know, so unceremoniously booted from The Tonight Show after a very short stint and just got completely screwed over. And then he was on TBS and now he's got a podcast. So the fact that he had returned to, like, you know, broadcast television in this major role and killed it, I think was satisfying.

26:14Vinson Cunningham:This brings me to something I want to ask all of you, which is we keep saying this is a notoriously difficult gig. What makes this such a hard job? It seems like it would be pretty easy just kind of like tell some jokes. There are some rich, famous celebrities in the room. You make a little fun of them, but in a kind of fun way, and then you move right along. But we all know that sometimes this really bombs. What makes it so hard?

26:39Alexandra Schwartz:I kind of think it's hard because it's actually two jobs. Actors talk all the time about how a stage performance is different than a television performance. It's different than a movie performance, that one acts differently for the camera than one does for the stage. And here we have somebody who's been asked to do both. And weirdly, the success of one, the televisual, has as its precondition success in the room. Like they're feeling what's working in the room, but also kind of experiencing this channel of connection with the host. So it's really, that part of it seems to me difficult. There's really no way to bomb in the room and survive on television.

27:24Alexandra Schwartz:Like, for instance, you know, Letterman was really good at doing that on his late night TV show. There is something like that that can happen in a different kind of venue. But here it's like, no, no, no, you have to succeed at both all the time.

27:36Vinson Cunningham:Are there any moments that have crystallized for you what a great host is or isn't? I can't, you know, the specifics of the Anne Hathaway-James Franco combo have mercifully faded from my mind. But the aura of it will never leave me. The kind of excruciating awkwardness of the James Franco, I just don't care, like so entitled attitude. And I had forgotten that he was nominated that year. So here we are and it's Hollywood's biggest night. And it's very exciting for both of us because we're both nominated. Actually, James, I'm not nominated tonight.

28:20Michael Schulman:Come on, Anne, don't be so modest. No, I'm not modest. I'm just not nominated.

28:26Vinson Cunningham:He almost seemed to want to screw the whole ceremony up and just slack his way through it. And then the Anne Hathaway real try-hard, like, I'm-here-to-shine energy. and the excruciating combo of each of those non-hosts hosting together, to me, is hard to rival. What about you guys?

28:46Michael Schulman:One moment that's really burned in my mind from growing up in the 90s watching the Oscars as a sort of cringey moment is Letterman coming out in 1995 and starting with the Oprah Uma bit. Oprah?

29:06Uma Uma

29:12Alexandra Schwartz:Oprah

29:16Alexandra Schwartz:I feel much better

29:21Alexandra Schwartz:Have you kids met Keanu? See I still think that's funny

29:26Michael Schulman:You're the only one I know. I love it. Would now be a good time for me to float my unified theory of Oscar hosting? Yes. I mean, please. Don't sit on that. Don't. We need it now. Don't hold back. I have been thinking about this for too long. I think the trick of it is that you have to be equal parts insider and outsider because you have to be part of the industry. And you have to have – people in the room have to trust you enough that when you tell – when you're roasting them, they know it's coming from a good place and that you basically have reverence for the movies and the Oscars as a ceremony while also not being too in it that you can't be irreverent, take the piss out of it, make fun of the movies, make fun of, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio sitting in the front row.

30:13Michael Schulman:So and then like if you're too outside, I think that's when you get like a letterman who really doesn't have a sort of love of Hollywood in his bones. You know, he's all irreverence. If you're coming at it and you just you don't seem to care about the movies or about like this ridiculous thing called the Oscars or if you're just not part of the industry, like jumping to the Golden Globes for a second. The comedian Joe Coy, like, super bombed a couple years ago. The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite, and flat feet. Or what casting directors call character actor.

30:58Michael Schulman:Some I wrote, some other people wrote,

31:00Alexandra Schwartz:Robert De Niro's here! Yo, I got the gig ten days ago. You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up.

31:09Michael Schulman:And he came out and he started out by saying, like, none of you know who I am, which was kind of true. And so once he starts cracking jokes about these movie stars, like, who are you to say this about me? Yeah, how dare he? Yeah. Basically. I mean, that was the, I'm ventraliquizing the room. Whereas Nikki Glaser came in and people in the room, it was clear kind of know and love Nikki Glaser. So she could go hard on Leonardo DiCaprio having young girlfriends. And it didn't seem like, why are you attacking me? Who are you? What a career you've had. I mean, countless iconic performances. You've worked with every great director.

31:48You've won three Golden Globes, an Oscar. And the most impressive thing is that you were able to accomplish all of that before your girlfriend turned 30. I mean, it's just insane.

32:01Leo, I'm sorry I made that joke. It's cheap. Like, you know what? I tried not to, but like, we don't know anything else about you, man. Like, there's nothing else. Like, open up.

32:11Vinson Cunningham:I also watched the recent Nikki Glaser hosting of the Golden Globes, her second time doing it. And you're getting really in the faces of these people to see essentially if they can take a joke. And a lot of her jokes were low-key and actually kind of cute. There's one about George Clooney where she asks if he can help her with her Nespresso problem. There's maybe my personal favorite to The Rock saying it's lucky that the paper wasn't nominated. That's not a personal joke, obviously. And you sort of see The Rock take a second to get it, which is also a whole thing. And then there are some harder-hitting ones.

32:47Vinson Cunningham:But it's, Michael, I think that's exactly right, that it's about that insider-outsider aspect. You are the court jester. So are you really wanting to be vizier to the king? or are you okay in that jester role? And someone like Nikki Glaser is okay in the jester role. The most famous example of it to me is Ricky Gervais just going in and trying to slaughter everybody at the Golden Globes in 2020 when he made a point of having a beer with him on the podium and emphasizing that this was his fifth and final time hosting the Golden Globes and did not hold back. Apple roared into the TV game with a morning show, a superb drama, yeah.

33:29A superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing, made by a company that runs sweatshops in China. So, well, you say you're woke, but the companies you work for, I mean, unbelievable. Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started a streaming service, you'd call your agent, wouldn't you? So, if you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech, right? You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. So if you win, right, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your God, and fuck off, okay?

34:10Vinson Cunningham:Very much worth re-watching. There are Epstein jokes in there. Ricky goes hard. And I do think it's about reading the room, the mood of the room, and then also the culture at large. What do we want to see in these interactions with our celebrities? let's do a little history Michael we want you to take us back we want you to give us a history of the notable moments in Oscars hosting history do you feel up to it? can you take us there? sure what if he's like no then frankly we all go home we release a little episode that's it

34:47Michael Schulman:here is a brief history of the Oscar host so the Oscars started in 1929 for the first decade of the Oscars They would be emceed mostly by whoever was the Academy president, like Douglas Fairbanks or Frank Capra, who was the major figure in the 30s. Sometimes it would be humorous. Shout out to Bob Bazooka Burns, host of the 1938 Oscars. What a great nickname. Bob Hope is the real transformative figure. He arrives in 1940, and he hosted on and off 19 times going through 1978. That's crazy. That is crazy. And he, you know, he was a figure. He'd come out of vaudeville and radio. He was sort of of show business, but like a little bit of a showman outside of it as well.

35:35Michael Schulman:I brought in some of his, some like real, some of his one-liners over the years. I love how these date and yet you understand, like you still see the format that exists today. So I warn you, these are some real groaners. All right. Let's see. 1941. How about these secret ballots? This was the first year of secret ballots. Columnists have exerted every trick to discover the winners beforehand. And when the last envelope was sealed, Pricewaterhouse had to open it again to let Sidney Skulsky out.

36:06Vinson Cunningham:What does that mean? Was he a small man?

36:09Michael Schulman:Who was Sidney Skulky? He was a gossip columnist. Oh, there you go. 1942. How about that air raid Wednesday? That was no air raid. That was John Barrymore coming home from W.C. Fieldhouse. Wow. Okay. He's getting a little political. Oh, wait, here's another good one. This was his last year, 1978. By now, this man is well into his 70s. He says— And not with the times. Like, not just not for the times. He says, I haven't seen so much expensive jewelry go by since I watched Sammy Davis Jr.'s house sliding down Coldwater Canyon.

36:42Vinson Cunningham:Okay. That was good. No, he approves.

36:46Michael Schulman:So, you know, obviously, Bob Hope, you know, he sort of defined this role as it moved from radio to television and became a big show. So, but, you know, by the 70s, he was a nostalgic figure. He was a square, you know. He was an old man. Who comes after Bob Hope? Finally. He's gone. In 1979, Bob Hope has hosted his last ceremony. They're bringing Johnny Carson, who then hosted five different years going into the 80s. Did he do well? Yes. He's generally very well regarded as a host. You know, he was the man for the job. He was the sort of, you know, fractured time in America. He was the sort of unifying pop culture figure.

37:24Michael Schulman:Okay. A major turning point year, 1989. There was no host that year. Instead, the producer Alan Carr stages an 11-minute epic opening number. You may recall this opening number because it has gone down in infamy featuring Rob Lowe singing with a woman dressed as Snow White. and they, among many other things, they do a rendition of Proud Mary in a replica of the Coconut Grove with dancing cocktail tables. This just doesn't sound thought out. No, no. It was widely considered a disaster. Like the worst Oscars ever. Used to work a lot for Walt Disney Starring in cartoons every night and day But you said goodbye to grumpy and sleepy Left the dwarves behind, came to town to stay Bleeding lights, keep on burning You know, this ruined this producer's life, Alan Carr.

38:30Michael Schulman:He really never worked again. Oh, no. You know, he had dreamt his whole life of producing the Oscars, and then he was like an Icarus figure.

38:39Vinson Cunningham:It was a one-and-done situation. If you had spent your whole life dreaming of producing the Oscars and that's what you came out with, maybe you should be doing something else.

38:46Michael Schulman:It was so bad that the Academy then formed a committee to study what had gone wrong.

38:52Alexandra Schwartz:Truth and reconciliation, Oscar style.

38:55Michael Schulman:It was the time for that. And the next year, 1990, is a much more modernized ceremony. And the most significant change is that they brought in for the first time ever to host Billy Crystal.

39:11Michael Schulman:So he comes in in 1990. He steps out onto the stage. Is that for me or just glad I'm not Snow White?

39:24I thought we'd bring her out and do the Lombada, the forbidden dance.

39:28Michael Schulman:Then he went on to host nine times between that year and 2012. And he sort of traded off with Whoopi Goldberg a bunch of times throughout the 90s. To me, this was the height of Oscar hosting. Nobody did it better than Billy Crystal. I still remember very, very clearly the first time I ever watched the Academy Awards, which was when I was – it was 1993. I was 11. I'll never forget his Howard's End spoof, which was hooray for Howard's End. And then he goes, and not an ounce of smut. It ain't called Howard's butt. They call it Howard's End. And not an ounce of smut. It ain't called Howard's butt.

40:10They call it Howard's Ann. Now listen up. Every time I say something to you, you will repeat it back to me. Are we clear? He is the ultimate figure of like, okay, here is this like funny Jewish man. He is not like a heartthrob in any way. He's a little bit weird looking. And yet here he is in this room. He made it. And he's leading everyone by the nose, basically. You know, he's like the master of ceremonies. And kind of last year when Conan hosted and for the first time, I was like, okay, I feel like this is kind of like his vibe was for me was a bit of an air to like the Billy Crystal. Or at least I had the same sense.

41:05Michael Schulman:Remember when he came on as Hannibal Lecter? Yes. The year of the Sons of the Lambs. And then Whoopi came on as Queen Elizabeth, the year of Elizabeth and Shakespeare love.

41:17Vinson Cunningham:Good. Oh, right. Yeah, because Whoopi did a lot of hosting. Whoopi Goldberg did a lot of hosting in that time, too.

41:23Michael Schulman:She was great.

41:23Vinson Cunningham:Yeah, she was great.

41:24Michael Schulman:She says, I'm the African queen.

41:26Alexandra Schwartz:Would you say, because I think we're still laboring under this model, right? of the sort of showman, as you say, sort of in-between figure, insider, outsider, who's funny but can create Bonomi, et cetera, but also is a kind of cabaret performer and who's going to bring the sort of triple threat of it all. Would you say that, like, would you say that Billy Crystal's, like, therefore the first modern host of the Oscars?

41:51Michael Schulman:Yeah. I mean, I think he was the defining figure of that era in the way that Bob Hope had been. He sort of redefined the role, not changed it completely, because he is a kind of Bob Hope, like, yuckster. Yeah. But it was, it didn't feel old-fashioned. Yeah.

42:07Vinson Cunningham:So when did the Billy era end, and did a new era come to replace it? I mean, Jimmy Kimmel is the one I remember hosting. Remember, it wasn't that long ago, but to me, he became— It was like 2020. It went on for an eternity. Jimmy Kimmel hosted for a bunch of years.

42:23Michael Schulman:We had to move on from the Billy era. I mean, in between, there were a bunch of people. There was Steve Martin. There was Ellen DeGeneres, who, of course, did the famous— Selfie.

42:32Vinson Cunningham:Do you guys remember the selfie? Yeah. How could we forget? The ussy. And she took that big selfie of all the stars, and it became, I think, the most tweeted photo or something like that up till that time. But guys, can we talk about the slap? Remember the slap? You probably should. That was a big host moment when Chris Rock hosted and— No, he was not hosting.

42:51Michael Schulman:He was presenting. He had hosted before. He had hosted before.

42:55Alexandra Schwartz:He hosted it in 2005 and had this great bit about going to Magic Johnson Theater on 125th Street and asking moviegoers whether they had seen any. This was like the year of like Million Dollar Baby, Ray, etc. And nobody at Magic Johnson Theater famously, you know, like in this black neighborhood had seen anything except for maybe like, I think it was White Chicks and Saw.

43:18Michael Schulman:Did you see Sideway? No. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. Did you see Finding Neverland? No. No? Did you see Finding Neverland? No. Did you see Million Dollar Baby? Didn't see that. No, I didn't. Did you see Million Dollar Baby?

43:33Alexandra Schwartz:It was really a funny send-up of like, most people do not care about what's going on here. He's always going to be my favorite because he was the, for me, the great stand-up comic of my youth and had a really less yuckstery way of sort of really sending the whole thing up, but was such a big star as a comedian that people still had to respect him and knew what he was up to. So it is weird that, you know, then he comes back as presenter and is literally struck down for a joke that he made. It's one of the cruel ironies of the job.

44:08Vinson Cunningham:In a minute, what do we want from a host today? Critics at large from The New Yorker will be right back.

44:24Vinson Cunningham:I'm Jazzy Sefcek. And I'm Shilpa Oskokovic. And we're senior test kitchen editors at Bon Appetit and the hosts of the Bon Appetit Bake Club podcast. Bake Club is Bon Appetit's community of confident, curious bakers.

44:35Michael Schulman:We love to bake. Some might even call the two of us obsessive.

44:39Vinson Cunningham:And we love to talk about all the hows and whys and what didn't work that come with it. Every month, we publish a recipe on bonappetit.com that introduces a baking concept we think you should know. Then you'll go bake, send us any questions you have. And we'll get together here on the podcast to talk about the recipe. And this month, we're making tiny tomato galettes. They are these adorable, maybe four-bite little galettes. So cute. Head to BA.com and come and bake along with us.

45:06Michael Schulman:Send us your questions, pictures, and any thoughts to BakeClub at BonAppetit.com or find us on the Substack. Join us the first Tuesday of every month as we debrief about our latest bake. Find BA Bake Club wherever you get your podcasts. Happy baking!

45:27Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. And we're the hosts of Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers.

45:35Michael Schulman:And just because the Oscars are done, for now, doesn't mean we are.

45:39Vinson Cunningham:Join us every week for coverage of the biggest stories in Hollywood, interviews with today's brightest stars, and so much more.

45:46Michael Schulman:Listen to Little Gold Men every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

45:55Vinson Cunningham:The Wired Newsroom is known for award-winning reporting on how technology shapes our world. On Wired's Uncanny Valley, we take that curiosity even further. Each week, journalists from Wired break down the biggest stories in tech while speaking directly with the people building, challenging, and reshaping the future. Is the AI boom sustainable?

46:13Michael Schulman:How do you protect your privacy in an age of constant surveillance? Uncanny Valley tackles the questions driving today's tech debates and lighting up your group chats. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

46:51Vinson Cunningham:you're in the culture. You know, I was thinking about someone like Letterman. He hosts the Oscars. It's a totally different platform. It's a different way of relating to the public. But then he goes back and hosts his own late night show. And now, of course, a host can mean many different things aside from that many hosts. Hello, live in your ears frequently and or on your screens as podcasters, whatever it might be. So the host is really a part of cultural life, I think, in a very prominent way, differently than it has been in the past. Do we have a unified theory of what we want from the host today, or can we collectively work towards one?

47:30Alexandra Schwartz:Well, I think this is so interesting because of what Michael said earlier about the origins of Bob Hope on radio. And it does seem to me what you just alluded to, Alex. We're headed back into a kind of radio age. The host has again become the podcast host. Even as we said, Conan, in a certain way, this is his return to big glitzy network TV after being a podcast host for many years. Some of the techniques, the sort of strange parasocial relationship that is formed under that sort of, you know, oral intimacy, I think is so much now what we think of with the host. I think we're returning to an age where we really want somebody who's kind of sitting right next to us, somebody with whom we have a relationship.

48:22Alexandra Schwartz:And I do think that that is slowly changing what we mean by host. We don't want someone like otherworldly or totally apart, that there is a kind of intimacy that comes with that position. It can be for ill. I don't think anybody wants Joe Rogan to be hosting the Oscars. But I do think there is— Maybe some people do. Maybe some people do. A lot of people do, probably. Yeah, good point. Maybe they do. Yeah. I do think that, you know, as that changes, like, these larger changes, all of a sudden podcasts are on Netflix. I do think that this thing is becoming very, like, liquid. Mm-hmm. No, that makes sense.

48:58And I think, Vincent, what you're saying about the host, that we want someone who is, like, that we listen to that's in our ears, right? more than we want someone removed. I think that has always been kind of the case, I think, with the Oscars host. Like, that is, you know, the thing I said about Billy Crystal, where watching it I was like, hey, I'm up there. I mean, I know I'm not like an older Jewish man, but like the idea of— In your soul you might be. In my soul I am. It's not like some glamour, you know, some like super glamorous figure. It's like our own avatar up there, in a sense.

49:40Vinson Cunningham:One thing that does occur to me is, I think in the modern culture of hosting, I'm specifically thinking of podcasts, there is really a cozy relationship between celebrity guests and the host. It happens on Rogan. It definitely happens on Good Hang with Amy Poehler, which, of course, is super, super popular. And there's a sense of insideriness that nonetheless includes the audience. but I do think that people are clearly responding to and very positively because these shows are really really popular the sense that they can just be a fly on the wall during a celebrity conversation that both has an aura of realness to it like oh these people are friends they're hanging out they're casually talking it's not stilted in the way that it is when a professional interviewer meets with a an interview subject who they don't know personally it is cozy it's friendly.

50:33Vinson Cunningham:I feel like we're all hanging. But of course, anything that's super awkward or unapproved is not going to be mentioned because that's not the point. The point is not to catch anyone out or make anyone feel uncomfortable or put their feet to the fire or even roast them, as happens on an Oscar show. I think that we still want our zingers to hit. But I wonder if this will change because in general, we are in this very, very cozy celebrity moment. I think like it's interesting to me like someone like Nikki Glaser who we mentioned before who hosted the Globes very successfully. There is something about her presence.

51:12One thing I like about Nikki Glaser is that she has this combination of like obviously a very self-assured, roasty, kind of like gives no fucks, will say what she wants to say, kind of vibe to her personality. But in another way, there's something kind of vulnerable about her. You could tell that she is coming from the outside and that she's excited to be there. You could tell that she's like a little bit nervous. But that doesn't keep her from holding the feet to the fire. And I feel like watching her, I was like, okay, like, where has this been? Maybe the fact that she's a woman, too, and usually we do have a man.

51:55I mean, there have been, of course, women, Oscar hosts, Ellen, Whoopi, you know, all that. But it's mostly a man. And recently, it's mostly been a man. But I was like, huh, I feel like this might be a way forward and kind of splitting the difference between like, oh, we're all like BFFs here and we're just going to talk about how great we all are or whatever. And kind of like, I'm going to ask you like horrible questions that you're not prepared to answer. I'm going to, you know, roast you so terribly that you're going to like crawl out on your hands and knees.

52:31Vinson Cunningham:Totally. I thought Nikki Glaser did a really good job, too. And it was notable to me that at the end of each roast she did, she really went at Kevin Hart for being short, for example, among other things. She also did mention him not hosting the Oscars. You know, she would say something like, but I love you so much. You know I love you so much. I'm so, so sorry.

52:52Michael Schulman:Yeah, she warms it over. She warms it over. So everyone's smiling still. Yes, as she moves on.

52:57Vinson Cunningham:And so she's really keeping it copacetic with the people in the room. And she did straddle that line between being brutal and being funny and friendly. I think maybe my favorite joke of hers was the last joke where she thanked Steve Martin and Martin Short for being there and proving to people that no matter how much success you've had, you still need more money in Hollywood. And they were laughing and they liked it. But so, yeah, do you guys want more of that? Or do you, would you ever want to go back to Ricky Gervais at the 2020 Golden Globes, who is so acidic and aggressive that the camera keeps cutting to the horrified celebrities in the audience, including, at least very memorably to me, Tom Hanks, who is just grimacing, grimacing throughout.

53:41Vinson Cunningham:Do you want more discomfort? Or are you happy with a situation where we get to have our cake and eat it too, where we get to have our laughs and move on?

53:50Alexandra Schwartz:Well, I think it totally matters when it is and what time we're talking about. I think we want somebody who's actually responsive to how people feel at a given time, whether it's just about the movies or about the politics of the moment or about the way that the sort of, I don't know, like elite class from which these people come are like sort of behaving in the rest of the culture. I think all this stuff matters or we keep assigning it meaning because for whatever reason, people still like on a mass level love movies. Like cinema is still something that brings people together to say something really corny.

54:25Alexandra Schwartz:But what we do with movies and with works of art that are like popular in nature is like we talk about them with our friends. Like they create discourse. They create a kind of weather system around them. And we want somebody to kind of give that, like replicate that, like give that back to us. And so it depends. I think it depends totally on the mood of, like, how we want that person to be or show up. But I do think that we want to know that however this person is, is not just a preordained decision, like what the industry wants the person to be like, but that they are on some level being responsive to a mood that we all feel.

55:01Michael Schulman:It occurs to me, too, that, you know, America's watching and they know that these are rich, glamorous, beautiful people being celebrated. There's something inherently ridiculous and sort of gross about it. And so you need someone to, like, acknowledge that and take the piss out. because it's not of, it's like as much as the Oscars hold themselves up as this like vaunted, important, you know, tradition, you know, they're all so absurd. That's why I love them. And so is Buckingham Palace. And so is Buckingham, exactly. It's like these things only have, the value in them is only, they're like Tinkerbell.

55:42Michael Schulman:It's like they're only important to the extent that we will clap for them and believe in them. Quite right.

55:56Vinson Cunningham:This has been Critics at Large. Alex Barish is our consulting editor. Rhiannon Corby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Our show is mixed by Mike Kutchman. Alexis Quadrato composed our theme music, and we had engineering help today from James Yost. You can find every episode of Critics at Large at newyorker.com slash critics. We will see you next week.

56:31Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

56:39Vinson Cunningham:Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-CONTACTS.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-CONTACTS

57:04Alexandra Schwartz:I'm Vincent Cunningham.

57:06Vinson Cunningham:I'm Nomi Fry. I'm Alex Schwartz, and we host Critics at Large from The New Yorker.

57:10Alexandra Schwartz:Each week we pick a starting point. The new novel you can't stop thinking about, the movie everybody's seeing this weekend, and we kind of go galaxy brain with it.

57:20Vinson Cunningham:Right, we take the ideas at the center of these things and trace them across history, across mediums, all to get to the bottom of why this particular text is important right now in politics and culture and also in your everyday life. We go highbrow, we go lowbrow, we go everything in between.

57:36Alexandra Schwartz:Food culture to meme culture, Charlie XCX to Toni Morrison. K-pop to the Kennedys. From horror movies to heated rivalry. From the Oscars to the Met Gala.

57:46Vinson Cunningham:The Golden Bachelor to Wuthering Heights, great expectations to desperate housewives.

57:50Alexandra Schwartz:That's what we're talking about over here. We're having fun. It's Critics at Large from The New Yorker, every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. Who is going to win control of Congress this November? And what is it going to mean for the final two years of Donald Trump's disruptive presidency? I'm Susan Glasser. I'm Jane Mayer.

58:12Michael Schulman:And I'm Evan Osnos. We host the Washington Roundtable on the New Yorker's Political Scene podcast. We're following what key races could tip the balance of power in Washington this fall. We're also going to go deep on the influence of dark money and tech billionaires. So join us in the run-up to the midterms in 2026. Subscribe to the Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts.