Free Republic

LOS ANGELES - Despite repeated protests about its lack of diversity over the years, Hollywood does a fine job of engaging in repetitive amnesia about its pervasive and longstanding biases. Chris Rock, in other words, was in a target-rich environment on Sunday, and he didn't waste the opportunity. Rock's scathing and generally well-crafted monologue at Sunday's Academy Awards recalled the episode of "Black-ish" that aired on the same network just a few days ago. Rock's opening minutes were entertaining, but they made an array of serious points. "Is Hollywood racist?" he asked at the mid-point of his withering monologue,...

Comedian Chris Rock gave what has to be both the most monotonous and racially-charged Academy Award monologue in its entire history — it was 10 minutes of nothing but one #OscarsSoWhite joke after another. Then for the cherry on top, he shouted out “Black lives matter!” at the end. Rock hit the audience right out of the starting gate. “Man, I counted at least 15 black people on that montage,” he said. “Hey, well, I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the white People’s Choice Awards. You realize if they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job....

Chris Rock came out swinging in one of the best opening monologues in years and took on the diversity controversy from the get-go at the 88th Academy Awards. Last night also saw Brie Lawson win Best Actress, Leonardo DiCaprio snag Best Actor in his fifth nomination, Alejandro G. Iñárritu was named Best Director and Spotlight won Best Picture. With all that, the Oscars themselves had a not such a great night with a 23.1/37 in metered market results. That’s down 6% from the 24.6/39 that the ceremony got last year in early results from the 56 markets across the country....