Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue for the 2024 Oscars began out fairly run-of-the mill. There have been jokes about how Killers of the Flower Moon was lengthy sufficient to “drive to Oklahoma and solve the murders yourself,” a Madame Net shoutout, and a fairly good topical gag concerning the viral Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union tackle final week. However then Kimmel ended his monologue on one thing exceptional: a quippy, but honest and full-throated speech in help of Hollywood’s labor unions.
After the late-night host obtained some ribbing on the twin WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes final 12 months with chuckle traces each corny (“If a movie premieres at The Grove and no actors are there to support it, does Mario Lopez make a sound?”) and shockingly barbed (making it clear he wasn’t shouting out the Director’s Guild of America, who “folded immediately”), Kimmel pivoted to sincerity. Hollywood, Kimmel mentioned, “is at its heart, a union town,” after which proceeded to increase gratitude to the beneath the road labor unions: the truck drivers, Teamsters, and IATSE union members who supported hanging Hollywood expertise, calling for these current to help the IATSE of their ongoing negotiations with the studios).
Final summer time’s Hollywood work stoppage started with the Author’s Guild of America starting what could be a 148-day strike in Might, and continued when SAG-AFTRA, the actor’s union, went on strike two months later, on July 14, for 118 days. On the coronary heart of each union disputes with the studios had been protections governing the use of synthetic intelligence, as Kimmel famous by manner of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts joke.
Kimmel then referred to as many of these union employees on stage in a genuinely transferring demonstration of solidarity, closing out with one last joke: “I’m gonna make sure this show runs long so you get a ton of overtime.”
