Oscars 2013: the meanest show ever?

'Pick on someone your own size', snipped Christopher Plummer to mean host MacFarlane.

When The Onion tweeted inadvisedly about Quvenzhané Wallis shortly after the Oscars ended last night, Twitter exploded in outrage. An hour later and the tweet was removed. But the tweet about the nine-year-old nominee seemed to fit right in to an evening that had been both vicious and sexist in its attempts at humor.

Host Seth Macfarlane began the unfunny references to Wallis as he introduced her to the audience in the early part of the show. "It'll be 16 years before she's too old for Clooney," he said. Did anyone laugh?

There was a mean-spirited quality to Macfarlane's Oscars that went beyond the usual awkward imbalance of celebrating and embarrassing a self-indulgent industry in the same show. When did awards shows become such clumsyroasts? And could someone funny PLEASE start writing the jokes?

As the lights came up over the Dolby Theater at the beginning of the evening, the audience could be seen beaming and clapping. Except for one. Dressed, like Hamlet entirely in black, Robert Downey Jr, kept his arms folded tightly across his chest and nodded his head tersely. He clearly knew what to expect.

The nastiness started with a cheap shot at last year's winner for best actor, the Frenchman, Jean Dujardin, who had won for The Artist.

Thank God for the singing. Well, some of the singing. Certainly not the Macfarlane rendition of "We Saw your Boobs" which seemed to have been put together by a bunch of seventh grade boys – the demographic that ABC is longing to snare. (The best reaction to this song was Zero Dark Thirty Director Kathryn Bigelow's unchanging stone face. Minute 8.50).

Macfarlane had a go at her movie later, when he dropped a thud of a joke on Zero Dark Thirty. It's "a celebration of every woman's innate inability to never, ever let anything go," he said about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Shirley Bassey, Adele, Barbara Streisand, Jennifer Hudson and Norah Jones saved the evening and finally made the entertainment entertaining. You could sense the relief as the audience gave the singers rapturous applause. Lengthy standing ovations rewarded not just great performances (Bassey, Hudson and Streisand) but a break from the endless badly written snark.

No question of that happening. But at least the night came to a fitting end. After Michelle Obama raised the tone of the broadcast by announcing the best picture award for Argo from the White House, MacFarlane was forced to stand on stage and sing The Loser Song. Finally a joke that worked.

昨晚的奥斯卡颁奖典礼刚落幕，洋葱新闻网发表了一条有关奎文赞妮•瓦利斯的欠考虑的，即刻在推特网上引起轩然大波。一小时后这条被删除了。但这条调侃年仅九岁的奥斯卡提名者的似乎与这场为营造喜剧氛围而充满恶意和性别歧视的奥斯卡之夜正相匹配。

主持人塞思•麦克法兰在节目初始向观众介绍瓦利斯时就开始了并不风趣的言辞。他说道：“16年后，她对于克鲁尼来说就太老了。”台下有人笑了吗？

麦克法兰主持的这届奥斯卡颁奖典礼带有一种刻薄的意味，这比往届的奥斯卡秀有过之而无不及。往届颁奖典礼经常陷于既庆祝又嘲讽这个自我放纵的行业的尴尬境地。颁奖礼什么时候开始变成了一场笨拙的嘲讽晚会了？拜托编剧能写一些更有趣的笑话吗？

当晚随着灯光开始照亮整个杜比剧场，观众都在微笑鼓掌。除了全身黑色、穿得像哈姆雷特的小罗伯特•唐尼。他双臂紧紧地交叉放在胸前，短促地点点头。显然，他知道将发生什么。

令人恶心的地方从对演员让•杜雅尔丹的恶意中伤开始。这位来自法国的男演员凭借《艺术家》获得去年奥斯卡最佳男演员奖项。

感谢那些歌曲。当然，是感谢某些歌曲。麦克法兰的那首《我们看过你的咪咪》显然不在其中。这首歌像是一帮七年级的男生（美国广播公司极想吸引的听众群）写出来的。（对待这首歌最好的回应是《猎杀本•拉登》的导演凯瑟琳•毕格罗8分50秒时给的石头脸。）

之后麦克法兰也评价了她的电影，并对《猎杀本•拉登》这部电影说了点玩笑话。他把猎杀本•拉登形容为：“庆祝每个女人天生就永远不会让事情过去”。

雪莉•贝西、阿黛尔、芭芭拉•史翠珊、詹妮弗•哈德森以及诺拉•琼斯的表演拯救了这个夜晚，让这场娱乐盛会终于变得欢乐起来。我们能感受到观众在致以歌手们热烈的掌声时终于松了口气。现场观众长时间的起立欢呼不只是对（贝西、哈德森和史翠珊等人）杰出表演的衷心祝贺，更是对从冗长的糟糕节目中解脱出来的如释重负。

发生这种事不是没可能。至少晚会还算有个恰当的结尾。在来自白宫的一段视频里，米歇尔•奥巴马提高音调宣布本届奥斯卡最佳影片奖是《逃离德黑兰》。之后，麦克法兰被迫在舞台上演唱《失败者之歌》。终于，有一个笑话算是起作用了。

Vocabulary:

inadvisedly: 鲁莽地，欠思虑的

roast: [口语]苛责；嘲笑

standing ovation: 长时间起立鼓掌；起立致敬