Adam White: Jimmy Kimmel’s Oscar monologue was tepid and unfunny – it’s time for a new host

Jimmy Kimmel hosts the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles. Reuters

Adam White
© UK Independent

Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t – despite Donald Trump’s assertion, posted to his social media site Truth Social mid-show – the worst Oscar host ever. But his opening monologue wasn’t especially funny, inspiring light titters rather than belly laughs. But it fit a melancholy ceremony nearly derailed by a protest right outside the venue, and an industry uncertain about its own future.

Kimmel has always been a bit too strait-laced for these things, a US TV fixture who is deadpan rather than silly, a gentle ribber rather than at all mean. Tonight was a case in point: he saved his harshest gags for noted boogeyman Gerard Depardieu and Madame Web, a movie so easily mockable that most of the great jokes about its awfulness have already been made by its actual cast.