The 89th Oscar awards held on Feb 26 were expected to be a politically-charged affair. It was and it wasn’t, both in the diverse choices made by the Academy and the subtle speeches many winners gave. But the host of the show Jimmy Kimmel did manage to land a few direct blows on US President Donald Trump. Not only did he mock Trump’s denigration of Oscar-favourite Meryl Streep and his penchant for tweeting late at night, his biggest zinger referenced the healthy diversity of nominees and winners, in contrast to last year. Jimmy K quipped: “I want to say thank you to President Trump. Remember the last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist?” Burn!

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 5th, 2017