The Academy Awards Sunday night had the lowest ratings in the show’s past eight years, Deadline reports.
It’s both shocking and expected. On one end, a boatload of people vowed to boycott the Oscars because of the lack of racial diversity in its best-acting categories. On the other, everyone was anticipating host Chris Rock’s opening monologue because, well, we knew that every other word out of his mouth would be related to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. And boy, were we right.
Despite the numbers, the show was probably the most significant regarding the issue it addressed. Kudos to Rock and the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, for that.
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Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.