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Watch Chris Rock’s 2016 Academy Award Monologue Online: See His Blistering Oscars Opening Bit, Plus Twitter Reactions

By Nathan Francis
Published on: 14:40 PST, Feb 28, 2016

Viewers who missed the blistering monologue Chris Rock delivered to start the 2016 Academy Awards can still watch it online and see the host’s hilarious and controversial takedown of the award show and the racial controversy that surrounded it.

Expectations were high for Rock this year, with a growing protest over the award show skipping over non-white actors and a host who has never shied away from racially tinged humor. Chris Rock built the anticipation for his monologue even higher with a series of cryptic social media posts in the past few days hinting that he would take on the protests.

Video of the monologue itself can be found below.

In one message, Rock wrote “See You Sunday” and followed it with #blackout, the hashtag for those protesting the lack of black actors among the acting nominees this year. He also included a picture of television static, leading many to think he was referring to the possibility of censorship from the network.

Those who caught the opening of the show or who were watching Chris Rock’s Oscars monologue online found out quickly that the comedian wasn’t holding back.

“I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards,” he said to open the show. “If they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job. You’d all be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now!”

Chris Rock’s monologue had some sharp words for both sides of the protest, from the stodgy Academy voters to the seemingly short-sighted protesters.

“People [said] ‘You should boycott. Chris, you should quit.’ I realized that it’s only unemployed people who tell you to quit! I thought about quitting, I thought about it really hard. But I realized they’re going to have the Oscars anyway, and the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart.”

He also took aim at the most vocal members of the Academy Award boycott.

“Spike [Lee] got mad. Jada [Pinkett Smith] got mad. Will [Smith] got mad. Jada said she’s not coming. Jada boycotting the Oscar is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited!”

But the larger message of Chris Rock’s Oscar monologue was in defense of the protest, noting that such protests weren’t feasible in the past because of the very real discrimination blacks faced. He said there in many of the other 88 years the award show has been held, there were no black nominees at all, but it wasn’t as big of a concern because black people had “real things to protest.”

“We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won Best Cinematographer [in the 1960s],” he said.

But for all the jokes, Chris Rock’s Academy Award monologue ended on a serious note as he called on the academy to change and for Hollywood to find more opportunities for black actors.

“We want opportunity. We want the black actors to get the same opportunities as white actors. That’s it.”

Chris Rock’s monologue brought a range of reactions on Twitter, from those in strong agreement to others who saw the boycott as unnecessary. Some pointed out that black actors are actually well-represented among Academy Award winners over the past two decades or so, and that other minority groups like Asians and Native Americans have been the ones more slighted.

And MTV News caught some of the reactions of the white people in attendance at the 2016 Academy Awards.

Video of Chris Rock’s 2016 Oscars monologue can be seen here:

For those who missed anything, the Los Angeles Times has the full script from Chris Rock’s Academy Award monologue.

[Picture by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

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