Incoming Oscar Host Conan O’Brien Calls the Oscars ‘Ridiculous’

The holidays may be over, but awards season is in full swing. 

With the drunkest of Hollywood awards shows already in the books, we can now look forward to the Grammys, the Producers Guild of America Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards, and of course, the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, which is still the only voting body brave enough to slime its presenters. A lot more people would tune into the BAFTAs if there was a chance that, say, Sir Ian McKellen might get doused with rancid Ecto Cooler.

But “Hollywood’s Biggest Night” is obviously the Academy Awards. While we’re still a little more than a week away from finding out which films will be nominated for Oscars this year, we do know who will be hosting the ceremony: former late-night host/current guy who rubbed hot sauce on his nipples for YouTube clicks Conan O’Brien.

Even though he’s been tapped to MC the glamorous, yet oddly low-paying event, Conan just acknowledged that the whole concept of handing out awards for filmmaking is, at its core, pretty dumb. On the most recent episode of his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, Conan chatted with Nosferatu star Nicholas Hoult about his work on The Great, as well as Conan’s subsequent “obsession” with the actor.

They also discussed Hoult’s inclination to race Ferraris (you know, like we all do from time to time), which he enjoys because, unlike acting, it’s “very objective.” 

O’Brien agreed, explaining that in sports “things can be measured. And in comedy, you, no matter what you do, people go like, ‘Eh, not my cup of tea.’ Or someone can like it, someone else can hate it.”

Conan then pointed out our cultural attempts to create objective competitions around art are mostly futile. “You can never quite say, ‘No, empirically this wins,’ because how can you do that? But that’s true of all the arts,” O’Brien explained. “Like sometimes when I watch the Oscars or any awards show, I think: ‘This is so crazy. How can we be comparing all of these things and who’s deciding? And what does that even mean?’ It always seems ridiculous to me.”

Throwing shade at the organization that has awarded its top prize to both Green Book and Crash isn’t exactly the hottest take. But it’s a little surprising to hear from the guy who’s literally hosting the Oscars in just two months’ time. 

Since nobody else on the podcast even comments on this fact, it’s possible that the podcast was recorded prior to November’s announcement that Conan landed the Oscars gig. But in calling out the absurdity of the Oscars, O’Brien did prove that he’s the right person for the job.

In the past, the best Oscar hosts haven’t been afraid to poke fun at just how arbitrary the entire endeavor really is. Like the time Jon Stewart pointed out that Three 6 Mafia’s 2006 win for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” meant that the group officially had more Oscars than Martin Scorsese. Even Academy stalwart Billy Crystal once quipped that “nothing can take the sting of the world’s economic problems like watching millionaires present each other with golden statues.”

Hopefully Conan will find a way to humorously communicate this sentiment without alienating Oscar lovers the way he did the Monorail industry.