Beyoncé Opens Oscars On Tennis Court, As Amy Schumer, Regina Hall & Wanda Sykes Joke About Golden Globes, Off-Air Awards And “Don’t Say Gay”

Beyoncé opened the 2022 Oscars like it was halftime at the Super Bowl, dressed in tennis-ball yellow, backed by a chorus of singers and dancers on the tennis courts in Compton where the Williams Sisters learned to play, all while performing her nominated song “Be Alive” from King Richard.

The unusual opening number then gave way to a group monologue by tonight’s three hosts Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall, and Amy Schumer, the first official Oscar hosts in four years. Or, as Schumer quipped, three women – cheaper than paying one man.

The three hosts made quick work of various hot topics, joking that the Golden Globes would be included in the In Memoriam segment, lamenting the toll taken by Covid on Hollywood (a funny visual joke identifying J.K. Simmons as Timothée Chalamet) and the offscreen Oscars presented in some tech categories (the lights flickered).

Some of the nominees got barbs as well. Sykes said she has watched Power of the Dog three times and is “halfway through it.” Lady Gaga, they said, was snubbed for her performance in House of Random Accents.

And in one of the more topical references, Sykes said, “For you people in Florida we’re going to have a gay night. Gay gay gay gay gay…”

Schumer – “or as they know me in Hollywood, Melissa McCarthy said no” – was the first of the three hosts to take the stage solo, congratulating Hollywood on making movies during a pandemic before launching into a series of barbs:

• “After years of Hollywood ignoring women, this year we finally got a movie about the incredible Williams sisters’…dad.”
• On Don’t Look Up: “I guess the Academy members don’t look up reviews”
• Praising Don’t Look Up‘s Leonardo DeCaprio for working to leave behind “a cleaner, greener planet for his girlfriends”
• On Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos: “An innovation to make a movie about Lucille Ball without a moment that’s funny.” She added, “It’s like making a biopic about Michael Jordan and just showing the bus trips between games.”

Watch the Sykes-Hall-Schumer opening above, and Schumer’s solo monologue below.