In the post-Moonlight/La La Land switcheroo era, Seth MacFarlanes tasteless “We Saw Your Boobs” song at the 2013 Academy Awards might not rank as the annual ceremonys most shocking moments. But its still one of the most memorable missteps in Oscar history. Yet while MacFarlane courted plenty of controversy after he sang a ballad about various actresss nude scenes, the Academy apparently was not overly perturbed. They even asked him to host the ceremony again the following year.
“I got asked back the year after I hosted, I guess because the numbers went up,” MacFarlane said on a recent episode of Marc Marons WTF podcast. At the time, however, MacFarlane was making A Million Ways to Die in the West, and was unable to work out the scheduling. “Part of me wanted to say yes, but I realized the only reason Id be saying yes is to kind of show up the detractors,” MacFarlane said. “Thats not a good enough reason to put in that kind of work.”
Its of course no secret that right now, the Academy is still struggling to find a replacement for this years previously named Oscars host, Kevin Hart, who abdicated his position just days after his nomination, and initially refused to apologize for recently resurfaced homophobic tweets. (Hart did say sorry after he stepped down from hosting the Oscars.) MacFarlane was not among the performers asked to host this year, but told Maron that he sees “no upside” to hosting now anyway.
“Its so easy to shit on the Oscars because you dont have to read the news, you dont have to know history, you dont have to do any work,” MacFarlane said. “You just have to sit down, watch, and tweet. Thats all you gotta do. You see a lot more outrage about the Oscars than harmful legislation.”
As for what on earth motivated MacFarlane to perform “We Saw Your Boobs”? Blame the media—or at least, MacFarlane does.
“You should never read your own press, but I read a lot of press leading up to the Oscars and it was a lot of really angry, foaming-at-the-mouth kind of stuff,” MacFarlane said. “It was just like, Oh, I bet I know what hes going to do and I hate him for it from a lot of these outlets.” MacFarlane said he wanted to respond to the pre-emptive critiques, and that the original idea was a “very tame, old style song and dance. In a way, you helped create what you despise. Its this idea of creating an alternate Oscars that was exactly what they were afraid would happen. Thats what gets forgotten. They always forgot context.”
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Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Laura BradleyLaura Bradley is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com.
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