The 2016 Oscars was the 88th Annual Academy Awards hosted by actor Chris Rock. The award ceremony was beautifully decorated and filled with the most popular celebrities. The Oscars lasted more than three hours, which most people agreed was too long, and was watched by more than 43 million people. The Oscars is an award show to give appreciation and recognition to the people who make the movies a reality, such as actors, directors, hair, makeup and costume people.

Chris Rock opened the ceremony by stating that the Oscars is a “white people choice awards” and touched upon how black actors and actresses are rarely nominated for an Oscar. While on the subject of diversity, at one point in the show Chris Rock brought out actress Stacy Dash who greeted the crowd by saying “Happy Black History Month!” Many people can agree that this was an awkward moment of the night because Stacy Dash is a the director of the academy’s minority outreach program who said in
January that she believes that Black History Month should be eliminated. Chris Rock also showed the crowd
reenactments of famous movie scenes such as The Revenant and The Martian, but with a twist–some characters were replaced with black actors and actresses, with Chris Rock playing Mark Watney (Mark Damon) in The Martian, and Tracy Morgan playing Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) in The Danish Girl.

A memorable moment during The Oscars was when Chris Rock shared that his daughters are in the Los Angeles Girl Scouts and because it is the season of girl scout cookie selling, he invited the entire scout troop to sell cookies to celebrities in their seats. Many artists bought cookies including Leonardo DiCaprio, Sam Smith, Kate Winslet, John Legend, Matt Damon, Steve Carell, and Julianne Moore. By the end of the sale, the girl scouts made history by selling $65,243 worth of cookies, the most ever sold, and Anna M. Chávez, the chief executive of Girl Scouts of the USA, tweeted, “Special thanks to @chrisrock for supporting @girlscouts and making this year’s #oscars the sweetest yet.”

This year’s Academy Awards was the first Oscar for many celebrities, such as Leonardo DiCaprio for Best Actor (The Revenant), Brie Larson for Best Actress (Room), Mark Rylance for Best Supporting Actor (Bridge of Spies), and Alicia Vikander for Best Supporting Actress (The Danish Girl). Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu won his second Oscar for Best Director (The Revenant). They were very thankful and gracious when accepting their awards and hope it’s not their last.