Was John Cena’s Bare Oscars Second the Finest Joke of the Night time?

John Cena’s ‘streaker manqué” routine on the Oscars was fairly humorous. In an apparent setup, host Jimmy Kimmel requested, “Are you able to think about if a nude man ran throughout the stage right now?” upon which a seemingly undressed Mr. Cena popped his head out from behind the scenes to say, “I modified my thoughts, I don’t wish to do the streaker bit.” When Mr. Kimmel reminded him that it was all for comedy, Mr. Cena replied with fake seriousness, “the male physique is just not a joke.”

Nevertheless it was a joke. And shortly, a wholly bare, and remarkably buff, Mr. Cena got here onstage to introduce the Finest Costume Design, nervously greedy the sealed Oscar envelope over his genitals, as a makeshift fig leaf. The viewers howled as he inched alongside, hobbling sideways with painstaking little steps — making an attempt to maintain his envelope degree and his non-public components lined. Then, in a little bit of tv magic, he was draped in a toga-like, one-shouldered gown with a tasseled rope belt. Bit over, crowd delighted, and an apparent level made concerning the significance of costume.

The routine had deep roots in Academy historical past, harkening again to a well-known episode on the 1974 Oscars, when a streaker interrupted the proceedings (simply because the very refined David Niven was introducing Elizabeth Taylor), however its relevance extends into the current day.

Humor occurs when recognition meets shock. We snort when one thing routine abruptly transforms into one thing surprising. An exactingly chiseled, bare male physique onstage is just humorous as a result of it’s surprising — as a result of, that’s, it doesn’t belong to a girl. Seeing a unadorned girl on stage on the Oscars might by no means be humorous, just because it’s the norm to see feminine our bodies in numerous states of showing costume on the pink carpet, and in films as effectively. The humor of Mr. Cena’s efficiency truly derived from how clearly it mirrored what the ladies are all the time doing — proper all the way down to the mincing, precarious steps.

We tune into the Oscars to see spectacular ladies in spectacular robes. These robes are additionally intricately made framing gadgets for ladies’s our bodies, that are normally vastly extra seen than the boys’s. Though there may be now way more variety of fashion and physique sort welcomed at these occasions, a lot of the trend nonetheless spotlights breasts, buttocks and thighs.

There are oceans of gleaming, naked feminine flesh. Skirts are slit to the waist, necklines to the navel — typically each on the identical time. Typically clothes are literally clear. Each Florence Pugh (in a silver Del Core quantity) and Becky G wore peek-a-boo bustiers that freed the nipple visually. It’s not all the time snug to put on such garments. They require particular undergarments, physique tape, glorious posture and fixed vigilance to keep away from what’s come to be referred to as a “wardrobe malfunction.” Ladies dressed like this are precisely as nervous as Mr. Cena was solely pretending to be — and for much longer than the jiffy his gag lasted.

Oscar clothes are couture, apparent artistic endeavors produced by numerous hours of expert human labor. However so too are the our bodies beneath them — feminine flesh honed to close Greek-statue perfection by dint of meticulous food regimen, train and, typically, surgical intervention.

And simply as Greek statues sit atop pedestals in museums, Hollywood goddesses sometimes perch on vertiginous excessive heeled footwear, which forces them to take unnatural, overly cautious steps — simply as Mr Cena did — to keep away from toppling over. Right here too, he was, in impact, parodying his feminine counterparts. (Keep in mind Jennifer Lawrence face-planting on the 2013 Oscars as she made her method onstage in a cumbersome robe and footwear?)

An uber-fit bare man pretending to be frantic as he uncovered himself on the Oscars was greater than humorous, it was a mini-meditation on the still-enormous gender hole at trend’s highest degree. Emma Stone would perceive. Some form of robe snafu pressured her to finish her acceptance speech with, ‘Don’t look in the back of my costume.”