Oscar Host: Travolta, Latifah, Or Jackman?
What does it say about 2013 Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron that the three names that keep getting floated to host the broadcast are John Travolta, Queen Latifah, and Hugh Jackman, with whom the producers have ties from previous projects? Zadan and Meron have been openly gay for a long time. Would they really select a closet case, which Travolta and Latifah are? I doubt they’d go so far as to select Mr. Saturday Night Fever, since his image is so twisted and tangled these days, and probably is not ripe to be rehabilitated with the Oscar gig. I could see them going with Latifah: she’s hosted the Grammys, passably well, and would represent a “two-fer”: black and female. (If she came out she’d be a “three-fer.”) But her recent statement, after an appearance at a Gay Pride event made it seem as if she’d finally come out, was politically retrograde: would Zadan and Meron REALLY go there? My choice for the gig is Jackman: he’s charming, handsome, and knows how to land a joke. And he’d be my choice even if the others weren’t closet cases. My friend Michael Musto, however, thinks that Jimmy Fallon will be tapped, even though Fallon has already turned down the offer to host.
