Miranda Klingenberg | Staff Writer

Roughly 40 million people in over 200 countries tuned in on Sunday night to watch the Academy Awards. Of the nine films nominated for Best Picture, six had made more than $100 million. For the first year ever, the awards had a theme. This year, the theme was “music in film.” It was perhaps this reason that they chose Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane as the host. The opening ceremonies consisted of a few jokes at the expense of celebrities in the room, and William Shatner pretending to be Captain Kirk to come back in time to stop MacFarlane from making this year the worst in history. The audience was then treated to an original piece by MacFarlane titled “We Saw Your Boobs.” The song referred to the female actresses in the room who had done topless scenes in movies. This was followed by Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum ballroom dancing, as well as Daniel Radcliffe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt singing, and finally Sally Field and MacFarlane making out.

Many of the notorious moments of the evening consisted of MacFarlane’s jokes, which left no one safe in Hollywood. He made multiple references to the theory that in order to be successful in film, one must be Jewish. As he discussed Daniel Day-Lewis getting into his character as Abraham Lincoln, he said, “The actor who really got inside Lincoln’s head was John Wilkes Booth.” MacFarlane pretended to mistake Denzel Washington as Eddie Murphy as a sock puppet rendition of Washington’s new movie Flight was shown. As he introduced Salma Hayek, Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, he claimed that no one could understand what they were saying, but that it didn’t matter because they were good looking.

The hits just kept coming, however, as MacFarlane joked that the women in the audience had “caught the flu” and could credit their fit bodies to this, as well as attributing Jessica Chastain’s character in Zero Dark Thirty as “women’s innate ability to never let anything go.” Possibly the most controversial of all was when discussing Django Unchained, he said, “This is the story of a man fighting to get back his woman, who’s been subjected to unthinkable violence. Or as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a date movie.”

The rest of the evening had its own snags, even without the less than popular musings of Seth MacFarlane. Best Animated Feature went to Brave; one of the creators decided it would be appropriate to wear a kilt up to accept the award. Best Original Song went to Adele for her song “Skyfall,” which was featured in the most recent James Bond film, Skyfall. Bill Westenhofer, winner of the Best Visual Effects award for Life of Pi, was played off the stage with the Jaws theme. It was used to drown out his acknowledgment of the 250 employees who were recently laid off by the film’s visual effects team and effectively ruined his acceptance speech.

Best Supporting Actor went to Christoph Waltz of Django Unchained; Quentin Tarantino had written the role with him in mind. Best Supporting Actress went to Anne Hathaway for her role in Les Miserables.

One of the most heated topics of the evening (aside from MacFarlane’s low brow jokes), was that Ben Afleck was not nominated for his direction of Argo. Throughout the night, multiple celebrities made subtle (and not so subtle) comments about him being snubbed for the honor. The award instead went to Ang Lee for Life of Pi. Silver Linings Playbook brought Jennifer Lawrence the win for Best Actress. As she made her way to accept the award, she tripped over her large Dior Haute Couture gown on the steps. This may have dismayed other celebrities, but Lawrence picked herself up and graciously accepted the award. Since this incident and her behavior after the awards ceremony, she has become an overnight obsession on the site Reddit.

No one seemed surprised as Daniel Day Lewis snagged the award for Best Actor for his role in Lincoln. This was his third Oscar for Best Actor, and he is now considered the most decorated male actor in Oscar history.

Best Picture, the highest honor of the night, was presented via video by First Lady Michelle Obama and went to Argo. The fact that Argo had been nominated for Best Picture and not Best Director as well was hugely controversial, and a film has not won Best Film without the Best Director award since Driving Ms. Daisy in 1989.

Graphic by Fawn Hallum