02/20/19 4:35 PM: THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH NEW NAMES AND NOTES
Remember when Oscar was threatening to dump Frances McDormand, Gary Oldman, Allison Janney and Sam Rockwell as presenters because they weren't "famous" enough even though they've all been popular actors in multiple hit movies and TV shows for at least two decades? Somehow the past two weeks of announcements in regards to who will prsent on Oscar night make that inane earlier compulsion even more ridiculous a significant percentage of the forthcoming presenters are NOT as famous than those four.
Nevertheless, trying to make sense of the current leadership of their Academy and their perpetually boneheaded decisions is obviously a fool's errand. That way lies madness as they simply do NOT know what they're doing. We're beginning to question whether they even understand simple concepts like "entertainment" and "fame" and maybe even "movies" at this point. The complete lists of performers and presenters announced (thus far) plus a wonderful if short-lived conspiracy theory that we wanted to believe in after the jump...
COMPLETE LIST OF PERFORMERS ANNOUNCED THUS FAR
- Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga ("Shallow")
- Jennifer Hudson ("I'll Fight")
- Bette Midler ("The Place That Lost Things Go")
- Gillian Welch and David Rawling ("When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings")
- Queen and Adam Lambert (presumably a medley of Queen hits to celebrate Bohemian Rhapsody since the producers of the show are, you know, worried about coming in under 3 hours)
They haven't yet made an announcement about the performance of the Black Panther nominated song "All the Stars"
COMPLETE LIST OF PRESENTERS ANNOUNCED THUS FAR
- Chef Jose Andres
- Awkwafina
- Javier Bardem
- Angela Bassett
- Chadwick Boseman
- Dana Carvey
- Emilia Clarke
- Daniel Craig
- Laura Dern
- Chris Evans
- Tina Fey
- Elsie Fisher
- Danai Gurira
- Whoopi Goldberg
- Brian Tyree Henry
- Samuel L Jackson
- Stephan James
- Allison Janney
- Michael B Jordan
- Michael Keaton
- Keegan-Michael Key
- Brie Larson
- Queen Latifah
- Kiki Layne
- Congressman John Lewis
- Jennifer Lopez
- Diego Luna
- James McAvoy
- Melissa McCarthy
- Frances McDormand
- Helen Mirren
- Jason Momoa
- Tom Morello
- John Mulaney
- Mike Myers
- Trevor Noah
- Gary Oldman
- Sarah Paulson
- Tyler Perry
- Amy Poehler
- Krysten Ritter
- Sam Rockwell
- Paul Rudd
- Maya Rudolph
- Barbra Streisand
- Amandla Stenberg
- Charlize Theron
- Tessa Thompson
- Pharrel Williams
- Serena Williams
- Constance Wu
- Michelle Yeoh
That's 52 people and given that there are 24 categories, 8 best picture introductions, and presumably 7 musical performances to introduce (the ones listed plus maybe the in memoriam), and inevitable montages, we expect maybe a couple more names to surface. It's very annoying though that there's only ONE classic star (Barbra Streisand, who is not that exciting because she's always chosen) presenting. Seriously she's it in terms of people who were famous before the 1980s. I mean you can't even throw us one name from the musical trio of Angela Lansbury, Harry Belafonte, and Dick Van Dyke who were ALL in Oscar-nominated movies this year? Why must the Academy be so so perpetually / aggravatingly hateful to Old Hollywood?
And finally. We briefly got excited about the best conspiracy theory we'd heard yet about the presenters list, courtesy of Peter Knegt:
Whoopi Goldberg's absence from The View (she's sick, they say) since the day after they announced her as an Oscar presenter+the fact that she's the only previous Oscar host listed as a presenter+she openly said on The View in January that she'd be up for hosting=???
— Peter Knegt (@peterknegt) February 20, 2019
Whoopi as secret host?!
That's a conspiracy theory worth believing in and it sounds highly plausible since she has been missing from "The View" and that's an ABC show! While we maintain that the lack of a host is not as disastrous as the media was making it out to be we were worried that the lack of a host PAIRED WITH the chaos of this particular ceremony was going to be awful, so if she's the secret host that would be quite a happy result... at least in theory.
Whoopi Goldberg was a great Oscar host. She had the four crucial host ingredients: a) funny b) connected to the movies in some genuine way c) at ease with live audiences and in-the-moment performing and d) a huge fan of the Oscars. That last ingredient is not mandatory to executives at ABC or at the Academy but we could avoid so much trouble and heartbreak if it were. And why isn't it? Anybody that doesn't love what you're about is a really bad fit as, essentially, your brand ambassador. It's not that complicated!
BUT SAD UPDATE: The ladies of "The View" have now addressed this rumor to debunk it, saying that Whoopi is recovering from pneumonia. Having had pneumonia once before it can be a total lengthy beast of a sickness so I hope she doesn't have to drop out of presenting this weekend. Get well soon, Whoopi!