Oscar Liveblog: Mo’Nique livens up backstage
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7:35 pm: Mo’Nique comes backstage and livens up the staid press room almost immediately. She basically takes over the job of moderator, calling on questioners herself (to the consternation of the Oscar-sanctioned moderator).
When KTLA’s Sam Rubin asks her if there’s anything she wants to say to the assembled that she didn’t say from the podium, she fires back with, ‘Everything I wanted to say and everything I needed to say, I say.’ Queried whether she’s an actress or comedian, she says, ‘I am a stand-up comedian who won an Oscar.’ Asked what would happen if more stars were ‘full-figured’ and ‘didn’t shave their legs,’ she quipped, ‘they would win Oscars.’ And she furthers the Hattie McDaniel love (isn’t she trying to get cast as same?) by saying she’s wearing a royal-blue dress and the gardenia in her hair because that’s what the black Oscar winner did when she took a statuette. ‘For you, Miss Hattie McDaniel, I feel you all over me, and it’s time the world felt Hattie McDaniel all over them.’ (Perhaps with the help of Mo’nique).
It’s all very outrageous, fun, un-press room-like. But she loses us when she takes aim at the media members who critiqued her for not playing the award-season game (or, for that matter, making herself available for practically any press). ‘I’m very proud to be part of an academy,’ she said, that judges an actress by the work, ‘and not how many dinners she attended.’ Yes, Mo’nique, that was the media’s point.
--Steven Zeitchik
