Oscars Host Chris Rock Addresses #OscarsSoWhite in His Opening Monologue

"Is Hollywood racist? You're damn right Hollywood's racist."

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As expected, Chris Rock opened the Oscars with a pointed monologue that addressed white Hollywood. Chris was named host in October 2015, before the all-white acting nominations were announced; after they were announced, Oscar producer Reginald Hudlin confirmed that Rock would rewrite his Oscar monologue to address #OscarsSoWhite.

His full monologue: 

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I counted at least 15 black people on that montage. 

Well, I'm here at the Academy Awards. Otherwise known as the White People's Choice Awards. You realize, if they nominated host, I wouldn't even get this job. Ya'll would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now.

This is the wildest, craziest Oscars to ever host because you have all this controversy: no black nominees. And people are like, "Chris, you should boycott. Chris, you should quit. You should quit." And, you know, how come it's only unemployed people who tell you to quit something, you know? No one with a job ever tells you to quit. 

So, I thought about quitting; I thought about it real hard. But I realized, they're gonna have the Oscars anyway; they're not gonna cancel the Oscars because I quit. And the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart, OK?

I don't need that. Kev, right there? Kev make movies fast. Every month! Porno stars don't make movies that fast. 

Now … the big question is, Why this Oscars?

It's the 88th Academy Awards. It's the 88th Academy Awards. Which means this whole no-black-nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times.

You gotta figure it happened in the '50s, in the '60s — in the '60s, one of those years Sidney [Poitier] didn't put out a movie. I'm sure there were no black nominees some of those years, say '62, '63. And black people did not protest.

Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time. We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won Best Cinematographer. When your grandmother's swinging from a tree, it's really hard to care about Best Documentary Foreign Short. 

But what happened this year? What happened? People went mad. Spike [Lee] got mad ... Jada [Pinkett Smith] went mad and Will [Smith] went mad.

It's crazy, like, Jada got mad? Jada said she's not coming. I'm like, "Isn't she on a TV show?"

Jada's gonna boycott the Oscars — Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna's panties. I wasn't invited. Although it's not an invitation I would turn down. 

But I understand, Jada's mad her man Will was not nominated for Concussion. I get it. It's not fair that Will was this good and didn't get nominated. It's also not fair that Will was paid 20 million for Wild Wild West

This year at the Oscars, things are going to be a little different. This year, in the In Memoriam package, it's just going to be black people shot by the cops on their way to the movies. Yes, yes, I said it.

If you want black nominees every year, you need to just have black categories. That's what you need. You already do it with men and women — think about it. There's no real reason for there to be a man and a woman category in acting. Come on! It's not track and field. You don't have to separate 'em. Robert De Niro's never said, "I better slow this acting down so Meryl Streep can catch up."

No, not at all. If you want black people every year at the Oscars, just have black categories, like Best Black Friend. That's right, "And the winner for the 18th year in a row is … Wanda Sykes." This is Wanda's 18th Black Oscar. 

The real question everybody wants to know in the world is, Is Hollywood racist? Is Hollywood racist?

You gotta go at that at the right way.

Is it "burning cross" racist? Is it "fetch me some lemonade" racist? No. It's a different type of racist.

Now, I was at a fundraiser for President Obama, a lot of you were there, and it's me and all of Hollywood. It's all of us there and there's about four black people there: me, Quincy Jones, Russell Simmons, Quest Love. The usual suspects, right? And every black actor that wasn't working.

Needless to say, Kev Hart was not there. 

So, at some point you get to take a picture with the president. And as they're setting up the picture, you get a little moment with the president.

I'm like, "Mr. President, you see all these writer and producers and actors? They don't hire black people. And they're the nicest white people on Earth. They're liberals. Cheese!"

That's right: Is Hollywood racist? You're damn right Hollywood's racist. But it ain't that racist that you've grown accustomed to. 

Hollywood is sorority racist. It's like, "We like you, Rhonda — but you're not a Kappa." That's how Hollywood is.

But things are changing.

We got a black Rocky this year. Some people call it Creed, I call it Black Rocky. And that's an unbelievable statement, because Rocky takes place in a world where white athletes are as good as black athletes. So Rocky's a science-fiction movie. There's things that happen in Star Wars that are more believable than what happens in Rocky

One of the biggest snubs, no one is talking about. My favorite actor in the world is Paul Giamatti. Think about what Paul Giamatti has done the last couple of years: Last year, he's in 12 Years a Slave, hates black people. This year he's in Straight Outta Compton, loves black people. Last year he's whoopin' Lupita, this year he's crying at Eazy E's funeral. Now that's range. Ben Affleck can't do that. 

What I'm trying to say is, it's not about boycotting anything. It's just we want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities. That's it. And not just once.

You know, Leo gets a great part every year. All you guys get great parts all the time.

But what about the black actors?

What about Jamie Foxx? Jamie Foxx is one of the best actors in the world. Jamie Foxx was so good in Ray that they went to the hospital and unplugged the real Ray Charles. It's like, "We don't need two of these." 

Everything's not about race. Another big thing tonight is, you're not allowed to ask women what they're wearing any more. It's a whole thing— "Ask her more, you have to ask her more." It's like, "You ask the men more."

Hey, everything's not sexism. Everything's not racism.

They ask the men more because the men are all wearing the same outfits. Every guy in there's wearing the exact same thing.

You know, George Clooney shows up with a lime green tux on and a swan coming out his ass, somebody would go, "What you wearing, George?"

Hey, welcome to the 88th Academy Awards!

Chris first hosted the Oscars in 2005, making him the first black man to emcee the show solo. In his monologue then, he joked that the ceremony was "Def Oscar Jam" because Jamie Foxx, Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle, and Sophie Okonedo were nominated for acting awards. 


His performance got mixed reviews, as Vulture recently noted. Sean Penn was quite ridiculously upset by a harmless Jude Law joke: "Who is Jude Law?" Rock asked in his monologue. "Why is he in every movie I have seen the last four years?"

"Forgive my lack of humor," Penn responded when he came out to present Best Actress. "Jude Law is one of our most talented actors." LOL.

Chris appeared on David Letterman shortly thereafter and he said he had no plans to apologize for offending oversensitive actors (amen). "These actor types, man! Who the hell do they think they are?" Ironically, when Letterman asked if he would ever host the Oscars again, Chris said, "Yeah, if there's a lot of black people on it, I would do the show again." 


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