Oscars 2016: Chris Rock skewers lack of diversity, posts new promo

Chris Rock is going to the host for the upcoming 2016 Oscars on February 28, and there is one huge takeaway that we have from what he wrote on Twitter Friday afternoon: He is going out in full force on the Academy Awards nominating twenty white men and women for acting awards.

As you can see, he refers to the awards as “The White BET Awards.” Zing! The promo was actually filmed last year, so there’s not really anything at all he can do about the content of the promo. We just imagine that this is going to be a key part of the conversation when Rock actually hosts this show, which will probably be to huge ratings even without some of the diversity many people are looking for.

Is there a way in which the Academy can avoid the embarrassment at this point? Probably not, mostly because they are already in too deep with the nominations, and they cannot go back in time and change that. Also, maybe they’d be getting a little bit less grief about a lack of diversity had this not been the second straight year in which this was considered to be a paramount issue in the minds of many out there.

For Rock, the only question he has to wonder as a host right now is whether or not there is going to be some sort of substantial burnout when it comes to jokes about the nominations by the time we get around to the show. That’s the danger with announcing nominees a full month and change before the show comes on the air.