As if his opening monologue wasn’t searing enough, Oscar host Chris Rock followed it up Sunday night with a montage that inserted some of Hollywood’s funniest black actors into some of the year’s whitest films.
“For the second year in a row, all the acting nominees are white,” Rock said. “But worse than that, if you are a black actor, just getting an opportunity to be in a movie can be a struggle.”
There was Oscar-winner Whoopi Goldberg interrupting Jennifer Lawrence in Joy. “It’s not rocket science, it’s a mop,” she said. “Maybe one day they’ll make a movie about a skinny white lady that made a mop. A black girl would have to invent the cure for cancer before they give her a TV movie.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Then, instead of a bear mauling Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, it was Saturday Night Live cast member—and future Ghostbuster—Leslie Jones. “There are no black actresses in this movie!” she screamed as she tossed the actor back and forth.
Cut to: “Look at me, I’m a black thespian starring in his first dramatic role,” Tracy Morgan said. When Alicia Vikander caught him wearing a dress, he exclaimed, “I’m the Danish Girl!”
And finally, Chris Rock himself took over Matt Damon’s role in The Martian. But for some reason, NASA wasn’t working quite as hard to bring him home. “Can we just leave him up there?” Kristen Wiig asked Jeff Daniels. “I don’t see a black astronaut. Do you see a black astronaut?”
“I’m right here, motherfuckers!” Rock fired back.
