Jimmy Kimmel is no stranger to hosting an award show — he's been the MC at the Emmy Awards, the ESPY Awards, the American Music Awards, and, oh yeah, he's the host of his very own late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, on ABC. I'd say the man not only knows how to write a joke, but he knows how to tell one, too. That's why I trusted Kimmel so deeply to helm the 2017 Academy Awards — in a time that's ripe with political strife and division, I knew that Kimmel would (at least try) to hit the right balance of award show fun and the gravity of what's going on around us. Some of Jimmy Kimmel's jokes at the 2017 Oscars were political, and some were just in poor taste.
Kimmel addressed the orange elephant in the room right from his monologue, and a lot of his jokes poked fun at the current administration or at President Trump himself. It's all that's on anyone's minds at this point, so it was good that he just went for it straight out of the gate. He also made fun of Hollywood royalty like Mel Gibson and Meryl Streep, so he hit plenty of flavor points in there. One thing that wasn't so great? Kimmel's mocking of ethnic-sounding names. There was a bit about winner Mahershala Ali's name, and also a comment about one of the tour bus tourist's name, too, because he deemed it unusual. I mean, can we not with this stuff? For the most part, though, Kimmel had a good showing. Here are some of his jokes from the 2017 Academy Awards.
"I don't have to tell anybody, the country is divided right now. I’ve been getting a lot of advice, people have been telling me it’s time to bring everyone together, you need to say something to unite us, and, let’s just get something straight off the top, I can't do that. There's only one Braveheart in their room and he's not gonna unite us either."
Kimmel came out with the political stuff right out of the gate, and I would tend to agree — Mel Gibson can’t save us from this.
"Some of you will get to come up on this stage tonight and give a speech that the President of the United States will tweet about in all caps during his 5 a.m. bowel movement tomorrow. And I think that’s pretty darn excellent if you ask me."
You’re not waiting to see what our President tweets about the Academy Awards tomorrow? You’re totally lying.
"Andrew Garfield lost 40 pounds. Where is Andrew Garfield? You could barely even see him he got so thin. There he is... It was an astonishing physical transformation that hasn't been attempted since every actress in every role ever."
Every very hungry actress in the audience agreed with this.
"Maybe this isn’t a popular thing to say, but I want to say thank you to President Trump. Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? That's gone, thanks to him."
Remember #OscarsSoWhite? Doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?
"May I say from her mediocre early work in Deer Hunter and Out of Africa to her underwhelming performances in Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie’s Choice, Meryl Streep has phoned it in for more than 50 films over the course of her lackluster career. This is Meryl’s twentieth Oscar nomination. Even more amazing considering the fact that she wasn't even in a movie this year, we just wrote her name down out of habit."
Meryl Streep, just so, so overrated. SAD!
"Mel, you look great, I think the Scientology is working, I really do."
It’s not an awards show without a swipe at Scientology.
"Before we go any further: if you work for CNN, the New York or LA Times, please get out. We have no use for fake news. If you work for an organization with the word 'times' in it... even Medieval Times, I need you to leave the room."
Can't have any fake awards coming out.
"Amazon produced Manchester by the Sea, that was a fun movie wasn’t it? You know if you search for Manchester by the Sea on Amazon it says, customers who bought this item also purchased Zoloft."
Why were all of the good movies this year so sad?
"Black people saved NASA and white people saved jazz, that’s what you call progress."
I don't even know what to do with this.
"Time to find out how well those Spanx really work."
Kimmel dropped movie snacks from the ceiling onto a bunch of very hungry actors and actresses, and it was nearly a feeding frenzy. Watch your fingers, everyone!
"Hey @RealDonaldTrump u up?"
President Trump did not respond to any of Kimmel's cajoling in the monologue and the rest of the show, so Kimmel was worried something was wrong. Thus, he tweeted him.
Kimmel won some and he lost some, but there's one thing that he brought to the Oscars that's never been there before. Mean tweets!
Just with that, Kimmel can host again.
