Ellen DeGeneres announced on Friday that she will host the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony.
“I am so excited to be hosting the Oscars for the second time. You know what they say — the third time’s the charm,” she said in a statement.
Ellen also tweeted about the show using that lighthearted humor of hers everyone loves:
It’s official: I’m hosting the #Oscars! I’d like to thank @TheAcademy, my wife Portia and, oh dear, there goes the orchestra.
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) August 2, 2013
The comedian and talk show host previously hosted the famed event in 2007.
News of her hosting gig comes just days after it was announced that Cheryl Boone Isaacs has been elected the president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. She is the first woman to hold the position in 30 years and is the first African American woman to earn the coveted spot.
It’s refreshing that the show is set to be hosted by an openly gay women like Ellen DeGeneres. As many will recall, last year’s host Seth MacFarlane earned his fair share of criticism for his humor, which some felt were both unfunny and misogynistic.
To me, it was nice alternative to the cookie-cutter show audiences usually get and was just as offensive as anyone should have expected from the man who created “Family Guy.” Though it’s hard to deny that some of his jokes, like the one about Adele’s weight, were yawn-inducing.
Shockingly, DeGeneres is one of only two women who has hosted the ceremony solo. Whoopi Goldberg hosted in 1995, 1998, and 2001. On thirteen occasions, women have co-hosted. That’s pretty abysmal when you consider that the Oscars are set to enter their 86th year.
Too bad we’ll have to wait until March to see how it all plays out.
