The Oscars 2019: 91st Academy Awards

Serena Williams made not one but two appearances at the Oscars. The tennis pro presented A Star Is Born during the ceremony — and she’ll also be featured in a new Nike ad, “Dream Crazier,” that also includes gymnast Simone Biles, fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, the US women’s national soccer team, and other women athletes.




“If we show emotion, we’re called dramatic. If we want to play against men, we’re nuts. And if we dream of equal opportunity, we’re delusional,” Williams says in the ad.





“When we stand for something, we’re unhinged. When we’re too good, there’s something wrong with us. And if we get angry, we’re hysterical, irrational, or just being crazy.”

The expectations heading into the Oscars were low: Anything that wasn’t a disaster would have sufficed for the Academy. But while this year’s ceremony wasn’t without its problems—namely, the big one at the end of the night, when Green Book won Best Picture and became the next Crash—overall it was an undeniable success. This year’s Oscars saw a ratings bump for the first time in five years, Variety reported, with nearly 30 million viewers, an increase of about 12 percent over 2018. It was still the second-lowest-rated Oscars telecast to date, but progress is progress at a time when live-viewing numbers are dwindling and attention is split among so many other entertainment options.

That’s great news for the Academy. How, exactly, can it replicate its ratings boost in 2020 and beyond? Here are four takeaways from this year’s ceremony that the Oscars could consider in the future—for the sake of an entertaining telecast and its own mainstream popularity.





Is a Host Really Necessary?
The last time the Oscars went without a host, in 1989, the opening musical number was a disaster, incredibly labeled on YouTube as “the 11 minutes that ruined Hollywood producer Alan Carr’s career forever.” That explains (if not justifies) why the Academy was so desperate to get Hart to host, even after he brazenly refused to apologize for his previous anti-LGBT remarks.

But this wasn’t 1989, and the hostless Oscars of 2019 went from a brief Adam Lambert–Queen performance to a glorious three-minute bit from Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Maya Rudolph to the first award of the evening. It wasn’t perfect. Lambert’s performance somehow made Queen seem like a cover band, but the opening minutes were brisk, smooth, and competent, if not delightful. After all the drama that haunted the Academy in 2018 as it struggled to find a host, going into the first commercial break you had to wonder: Does this show really need a host?