Because of the pandemic, no one really had any idea exactly how the Oscars were going to play out in 2021.
Still, no matter what people might have expected from this year’s ceremony, no one could possibly have guessed the night would include some booty-shaking from eight-time nominee Glenn Close.
During the live broadcast, musical director Questlove and Lil Rel Howery played a game with the celebrity guests, in which they were asked to guess whether certain songs had been snubbed by the Motion Picture Academy back in the day.
When it came to Glenn’s turn, she was played E.U.’s Da Butt, and surprised everyone in attendance with her somewhat encyclopedic knowledge of the track.
“Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second,” she insisted. “I know that’s Da Butt. I know that.
“Da Butt was a classic song by the great Washington DC go-go band E.U., Spike Lee had it written for his brilliant movie School Daze and my friends at the Oscars missed it… and it wasn’t nominated, so it couldn’t have won, which I think is an effin’ disgrace.”
“I wasn’t expecting that at all, that you’d know Da Butt,” Lil Rel said.
Imagine his surprise, then, when he asked Glenn to demonstrate Da Butt’s accompanying dance, and she happily obliged.
Truly, it was a moment none of us could have prepared for:
It didn’t go unnoticed that this totally bizarre scene then segued seamlessly into… the rather somber In Memoriam tributes section of the evening.
Glenn Close was nominated for her eighth Oscar on Sunday night, but lost out in the Best Supporting Actress category to Youn Yuh-jung.
She now holds the dubious honour of being the living actor who has the most Oscar nominations without a win.