Stephen King urges Oscars to be canceled as awards debate continues

Stephen King wants to banish this year’s Oscars to the dead zone.

King is the latest celebrity to urge the Motion Picture Academy to cancel the awards following the devastating Los Angeles fires.

“I will not be voting at the Oscars this year,” King wrote on Bluesky, the social platform he joined after recently dropping X. “IMHO they should cancel them. No pomp with Los Angeles on fire.

To be clear, the Academy has no plans to cancel the show. As The Hollywood Reporter exclusively reported yesterday, the 2025 Oscars ceremony is still scheduled to take place on March 2.

The arguments for holding the Oscars are: Canceling an awards show doesn’t really help anyone. But using the Oscars’ massive, global audience platform to help raise money for wildfire-related causes would benefit those affected by the fires. Therefore, any sense of the Oscars being canceled feels more like an instant desire to end something celebratory rather than a decision that would actually be beneficial. Hollywood loves to rally around a noble cause, and it’s hard to imagine the Oscars not making an effort to help wildfire victims and seeming inappropriate in the wake of the tragedy.

“The dominant feeling within the leadership of the Academy”, as explained THR reported, “is that the show should go on – in a dignified way that would help raise funds and celebrate fire relief efforts”.

Previously, Tips Star Jean Smart also suggested canceling the show, which regularly attracts 20 million viewers, and suggested donating “the income they would have collected would be donated to the victims of the fires and the firefighters.”

Smart’s post received backlash, as did King’s. Even among his supporters at the left-leaning Bluesky newspaper, readers largely pushed back against the idea of ​​abandoning the series.

“(Awards) workers have had months, YEARS without pay due to covid, then due to union negotiations,” one wrote. “And now the fires. You are wrong in this one. Support the industry.

“America needs a good distraction from all the pain and suffering we go through daily,” said another. “It’s show business. You should know that. The show must go on. »

And obviously it will.