Oscars 2019: Is this going to be the worst ever?

The stage of the Dolby Theatre is set, an army of seven-foot golden statues line the red carpet and Hollywood Boulevard has been closed down, snarling traffic for blocks. Dozens of gold-plated awards have been polished to a gleaming shine, and the names of winners are under lock and key, known only to two vote-tabulating accountants who pray they won’t screw it up this year. Everything’s ready for Sunday’s Academy Awards, and yet before a single Louboutin has trod the red carpet, it’s already poised to be the worst Oscars ever.

This year’s show has already been marred by ill will, backstage chaos, frustration and dread within Hollywood.

Political correctness has run rampant tainting many of the contenders, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which presents the awards, has made every wrong move imaginable in trying to make the telecast viewed by millions worldwide anything but the snooze-fest death-march of unknown sound mixers and documentary short directors thanking agents, managers, publicists and significant others that it too often becomes.

It was political correctness that led to there being no host for this year’s Oscars, leading many Hollywood sceptics to expect a repeat of the last disastrous year without a host: 1989, when Rob Lowe opened the show with a mortifying 12-minute song-and-dance routine with Snow White.

It left the all-star audience cringing so painfully that it destroyed the work of a thousand face-lifts by the evening’s end.

For the first time in 30 years the Academy Awards is without a host again, after comedy star Kevin Hart was shamed into withdrawing from the role after it was revealed that a decade ago he had made some sexist and homophobic comments on social media.

Hollywood stars rallied around Hart begging him not to quit, and he issued a heartfelt apology for ancient misdeeds, but LGBTQ critics battered him into submission.

“I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists,” said Hart, throwing in the towel.

This year’s film and actor contenders have also been caught in the PC crossfire.

VIGGO Mortensen probably cost himself the Oscar for best actor for his role as a racist Italian thug developing a friendship with a gay African American musician in Green Book, after using the “n-word” during a panel discussion promoting the film.

Despite the fact that Mortensen used it in context to explain how racism had evolved, saying: “For instance, no one says n****r any more,” while sitting beside co-star Mahershala Ali, and immediately apologised, the chorus of righteous condemnation was swift and damning.

Green Book took another hit when Ali was forced to apologise to the family of the real-life jazz pianist he portrays, Don Shirley, whose brother Maurice called the film “a symphony of lies”.

Shirley’s family was upset that the film made him appear estranged from them, and distanced from his African-American roots.

A Star Is Born, which initially wowed critics and audiences alike, has been plagued by PC trolls who complain that Lady Gaga’s character lacks agency, that Bradley Cooper’s is a wimp, and “most problematically, that the film has nothing to say about the world in which we live,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Feminists have complained that Gaga’s character Ally “has a problem with consent” as every time she says “No” it’s twisted into a “Yes” by a man, and that “the film positions a woman’s stardom as something that happens to a man”.

Bohemian Rhapsody was criticised for not being gay enough. For years, activists complained that gay characters in films were reduced to their sexuality. But once singer Freddie Mercury’s sexuality was pushed to the background in Bohemian Rhapsody, many have lamented that his sexuality was diminished as audiences don’t see him bedding a string of male lovers.

A trailer for the film even showed Mercury flirting with a woman, but gave no hint of his gay romances, prompting gay screenwriter Bryan Fuller to brand it “Hetwashing” – a heterosexual whitewashing of Mercury’s memory.

It’s the sort of attack that makes Academy voters think twice before casting their ballots.

Political drama Vice has been condemned by many as a “hatchet job” on former US vice president Dick Cheney, while director Alfonso Cuarón’s acclaimed Roma has earned the ire of some Academy voters who refuse to watch it on principle, because it’s produced by Netflix, which is challenging the foundations of the traditional cinema industry.

Roma, the first major movie to star an indigenous Mexican actress, has also been attacked for its racial politics, despite being what political pundit Bill Maher called “a movie made by liberals, for liberals, bursting at the seams with liberal values”.

Still, he lamented, for many it’s “not good enough”.

Maher complained that the Oscars are being ruined by “ridiculous purity tests”.He added: “This is a real problem in our society, looking to dump someone good because there must be someone more perfect. And sometimes, what you end up with is no one to host the Oscars at all.”

Academy voters are especially sensitive since the public outrage at the lack of diversity in race and sex among Oscar nominees three years ago sparked the #OscarsSoWhite campaign.

Protests against the Academy’s 6,000-plus membership being predominantly ageing white males prompted the Academy to add hundreds of new members, including many women and African Americans.

Though the Academy remains overwhelmingly white, ageing and male, members are now terrified of being branded politically insensitive, leading many to suspect that Black Panther and Green Book won their best picture nominations as votes for political correctness rather than historic film-making.

If you think voting for the awards winners is hard, then watching the show could be even more arduous.

Even without a host’s 20-minute monologue, the show’s producers admit the telecast will run way over the three hours it always fails to contain itself to.

And without a host, expect to see celebrities introducing presenters giving awards to other celebrities in an endless mobius strip of introductions and thank-yous.

The Academy ignited a firestorm among members earlier this month when it announced plans to present four of the technical awards during TV commercials – cinematography, film editing, live-action short, and make-up and hairstyling honours.

Only after destroying what little goodwill remained did the Academy relent and agree to screen all presentations. A plan to air only two of the five best original songs was also axed amid an outcry.

With audience ratings falling every year, the hallowed awards show’s relevance grows increasingly questionable, with so many of its nominated movies and performances seen by so few moviegoers. The Academy’s proposal to combat the problem by adding a new Best Popular Film category was swiftly killed by angry members.

It’s telling that the most memorable Oscar moment in recent years was when Faye Dunaway announced the wrong winner of the Best Picture award in 2017, naming La La Land instead of Moonlight, thanks to a snafu by accountants in charge of the winning envelopes.

After all the problems and embarrassments plaguing this year’s Oscars, if Snow White turned up to dance on Sunday night, it might be a welcome relief.