Sean Hannity launched into a misleading takedown of the Oscars on Fox News Monday while dismissing the show as “one big far-left protest.” (Watch the video at bottom.)
His most blatant deception was when he criticized an Oscar-winning director for discussing police violence. Hannity conveniently failed to mention that the director won for a work about ... police violence.
“Last night there was plenty of sanctimonious political rhetoric, including a healthy dose of anti-police slander,” Hannity said.
In a portion now deleted from Fox News’ version on its website, Hannity cut to co-director Travon Free accepting his Best Live Action Short Film Oscar for “Two Distant Strangers.” Free noted that police kill an average of three people a day in America and that they are disproportionately Black, as the Washington Post has reported.
Free and Martin Desmond Roe’s fictional film focused on police brutality. An innocent Black man gets stuck in a time loop and is killed by police over and over.
But that didn’t stop the reactionary host.
“And how many times have police officers saved lives?” Hannity asked, after showing the clip from Free’s speech. “Does that ever get talked about?”
Again, that part was deleted from Fox News’ site.
Hannity attributed the Oscars’ record-low ratings to the ceremony being “one big far-left protest where self-obsessed celebrities berate the American people and tell ’em how to think.”
The Academy Awards have been political for a long time. And while the show’s viewership has been mostly trending downward in recent years, Sunday’s cratered ratings can be linked in part to the pandemic. Many of the major awards shows plummeted to new lows as COVID-19 altered traditional TV viewing patterns, Variety noted.
Other reasons emerged.
“Why the low Oscars turnout?” USA Today asked. “Easy: Research showed many potential viewers hadn’t seen (or even heard of) many nominees. A slimmed-down red carpet lost fashion appeal. And the hostless ceremony was bereft of much entertainment from an opening monologue to even the best-song performances, which were relegated to ABC’s preshow.”
Fast-forward to 3:32 for the Oscar segment, with the Free segment cut out:
And here’s a version posted to YouTube that contains the cut segment at the 5:34 mark: