Jordan Peele's horror film; are The Oscars must-see TV?

It did start with an idea of addressing race with a horror film and feeling like that was a missing piece of the conversation. And then also I feel like there's an element to this movie that fulfills the representation that the stereotypically black horror movie audience needs out of their horror movie, which is B---h, get out the house! Why are you still there? Call the cops! You know, I wanted to make a movie where that audience is satisfied.

It's one of those things that is in my marrow. I was very afraid of horror movies as a kid. I had a wild imagination, and it was kind of uncontrollable. And at some point I grew up and I began to respect these films that could affect me so powerfully. So that was a little bit of a turning point ... I think there's a life-long journey to conquer your own fear. The first step for me was respecting these people who had mastered it.

I didn't want to make stereotypically racist white people [as] racists in this movie. I wanted to sort of pull back the layers of how really race is in all of us. And if you don't think you're facing it personally you're kind of part of the problem here. This movie's also about the neglect of very serious issues — about the fact that we have a disproportionate amount of African American men in prison. In a lot of ways, this movie is an allegory for us not acknowledging that as a serious problem.

When I first made it, I feel like it was a conversation people were not necessarily open to having, which is kind of the point. Now I think it serves as a release from all the sort of daily bulls--t that is, for many of us, the racial conversation and how it's handled. So I think it will be something that people are more ready to talk about and a movie people are ready to see.

Chaney: I think the most important thing they could do is take a minimalist approach, and just do what they're supposed to do — present the awards, not spend too much time on silly bits and musical numbers. The truth is that what makes any live event really great are surprise, spontaneous moments, and by the nature of spontaneity, you cannot plan for that.

Jung: I think Jen's right in terms of allowing room for spontaneity to happen, and a lot of that spontaneity is going to come from actors giving speeches. You saw people like Mahershala Ali give really beautiful, subtle speeches, and then you had Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes give a firebrand, drop-the-mic kind of moment. I think the Oscars could learn from letting people have space to do that, because you're not going to have Nicki Minaj asking Miley Cyrus, "What's good?" Which is unfortunate.

Horn: I have to agree, the ceremony lives and dies by the acceptance speeches, and there's so many bad speeches every year. They should build a trapdoor right underneath the podium, and if you say the words, "my team at CAA," or "my group at WME," it opens and you fall through the stage. If you're a documentary short filmmaker, no one is going to listen to you more than they're going to on Oscar night. Then you get up there and you start thanking your publicist? Use that opportunity to say something meaningful.

Jung: I like him at the ABC Upfronts. I feel like that's a good venue for him, where he gets to make fun of networks, but I do sort of feel like... like, when you go into a Thai restaurant, and they ask you what spice level you want, and they give the option of "foreigner spicy"? That's what Jimmy Kimmel feels like to me. He'll definitely do a couple obligatory jokes about Donald Trump or the current political climate, but I don't think he's the kind of person who will hit or meet the current moment the way that I suspect a lot of people will be itching for.

Chaney: I agree with that, and one of my frustrations from the past year of watching award shows is that literally every award show has been hosted by whoever hosts the late-night talk show on the network that was broadcasting the award show. It just gets very boring.



The least exciting thing the Academy Awards could have done was choose Jimmy Kimmel — not because of Jimmy Kimmel, but because that's what every other awards show is doing at this point. That part of it is just not exciting.



Obviously, they've tried to mix things up in the past and it hasn't always worked out for them in terms of the rating, but I still like it when they try to choose different people, especially because all the late-night hosts are still white dudes. So this is another way in which we're not getting an opportunity to hear from women, people of color, or other voices.

Horn: One of the things the academy tried was expanding the Best Picture race to as many as 10 nominees, and yet the ratings have precipitously declined since 2014 — they've lost 10 million viewers over the last two years. So if you're ABC or if you're producing this show, what can you do to make people tune in?

Chaney: I mean, that's the thing, it really does hinge on the movies. If you look back at the past 20 years, the telecasts that were the most highly-rated were "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King." Those were huge, widely-loved movies that were nominated for tons of awards.

"La La Land" was also nominated for tons of awards, but I don't think it's a mainstream, beloved movie in the same way that those two were. And when you have that situation, I think they'd be wise to play up the spontaneity, like, "What's somebody going to say politically? Who knows, tune in and find out!" That's what I'd be watching for.

Horn: Is it time to bring back Debbie Allen and the "Solid Gold" dance team? Or was it interpretive dancing?

Chaney: I am in favor of anything that brings back solid gold. Or Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White again, I'd be up for that.