During the Oscar 2025 opening monologue, presenter Conan O’Brien caused controversy when making jokes on Brazilian film that portrays the horrors of the military dictatorship and competes in three categories: Best Movie, Best International Film e Best actresswith Fernanda Torres.
In presenting the Brazilian actress, O’Brien mentioned the plot of the feature, who tells Eunice Paiva’s fight to discover her husband’s whereabouts, former deputy Rubens Paiva ,. The comedian then made a joke comparing the story of the movie with his personal life.
“I’m still here ‘is about a woman who raises her family alone after her husband disappears. My wife watched, said that she loved the story and wanted it to happen to her ”O’Brien said, causing laughter in the audience.
The comment, however, generated a strong negative reaction among Brazilians on social networks. In X (former Twitter), netizens classified the joke as insensitive and disrespectful. “Early bad joke considering the tragic story of the Paiva family”wrote a user. Another stated: “This Conan joke about ‘I’m still here’ shows that he didn’t see the movie”.
Besides the controversy about the Brazilian feature, O’Brien too, actress of Emilia Pérezwho had ancient allegedly racist tweets and was removed from the campaign of the film. During the ceremony, the presenter mocked the situation by mentioning another indicated: “’Anora’ uses the word with F (a bad word in English) 479 times. There are three more than the record hit by the agent of Karla Sofa Gasco ”joked.
He continued to mention the name of another humorist: “Gascon is here today and … Yes, yes … Karla, if you complain about the Oscar, remember: my name is Jimmy Kimmel”He said, referring to the talk show host who has previously commanded the award.
