Late-night talker Jimmy Kimmel is hosting the Oscars this Sunday and spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about his upcoming gig. The outlet wanted to know if politics would be a focal point of many of the night’s acceptance speeches. Kimmel wasn’t sure, exactly, but added he thinks Middle America has Hollywood all wrong in thinking it’s nothing but liberals.
Going by his own words, Kimmel is a little confused on the makeup of Hollywood, first describing Tinsel Town as “largely very liberal,” then not entirely liberal before saying “most of them are pretty liberal.”
“I think that you’ve got a group of people who are largely very liberal,” Kimmel said. “I don’t think the audience in its entirety is as liberal as people in Middle America imagine it is, but the celebrities, most of them are pretty liberal.”
That’s a mouthful.
Hoping to prove his assertion, Kimmel reminisced about his first time hosting the Emmys back in 2012, saying, “I had a joke about there being no Republicans in the room, and a surprisingly big group of people clapped when I asked if there were Republicans, and I was a little bit thrown by it.”
We looked that up to remind ourselves what happened. Kimmel asked the audience that election year if anyone was voting for Mitt Romney. And yes, surprisingly, there were quite a few claps and whistles; more than expected and even more surprising, not a large roar of boos to silence the scattered applause. But despite that response, Kimmel joked, “Alright, there’s 40 Republicans and the rest godless liberal homosexuals. See, that’s why Kelsey Grammar didn’t come tonight.”
“It’s difficult to be a Republican in Hollywood,” Kimmel's monologue continued. “Being a Republican in Hollywood is like being a Chick-fil-A sandwich on the snack table at Glee.”
That joke went over well judging by the laughter of the huge majority of liberals in the room. Nice try, Jimmy, but you’re flat wrong.
Incidentally, that same night, Kimmel spotlighted one of Hollywood’s newest faces during his opening monologue, calling out a 26-year-old Emmy first timer who was amazingly nominated for acting, writing, and directing all at the same time — Lena Dunham.
Yeah, Hollywood isn't THAT liberal.
(Start the above video at the 1:39 mark.)