Thread by @erikpatterson

The Dolby Theater is packed. Everyone's here. Meryl, Lady Gaga, the entire cast of Black Panther -- EVERYONE. The lights dim as a disembodied voice announces: "Ladies, Gentlemen, and Those Among Us Who Transcend the Gender Binary, please welcome your host... TAYLOR MAC!"

Taylor Mac descends from the rafters, wearing the entire gay bar from A Star Is Born as a gown, belting out Shallow as men in Ally drag do a chorus line down below. MAC: "Welcome to the 91st Academy Awards: A Radical Fairy Realness Ritual! Tonight is all about SACRIFICE!"

Behind Taylor Mac, a huge set piece is flown in. It's a GIANT ANUS.

Taylor Mac smiles at the crowd, eyes twinkling:"The Oscar producers called and said I'd be the perfect host. I told them perfection is for assholes. And this set was born. It's a REALLY. BIG. ASSHOLE. Isn't it?" Smile, twinkle. "Just like everyone in Hollywood." DISDAINFUL GLARE.

Taylor Mac steps out of the Star is Born gown, revealing a Freddie Mercury costume (white tank top, yellow jacket) underneath. "Or so I'm told. This isn't really my scene. I think you're all LOVELY PEOPLE."

Taylor invites Mahershala Ali and Rachel Weisz up on stage and does a bit with them about how handsome Weisz is and how pretty Ali is.

Taylor Mac sings the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody, then pauses the song briefly to invite every young man in the audience who was ever abused by Bryan Singer to come up onto the stage. They all join Taylor, transforming into a gay men's chorus of back-up singers.

TAYLOR MAC: "Rami Malek is here! What a lovely performance you gave as Freddie Mercury. I do want to point out, though -- I do have an ISSUE with something you said in an interview. You said Freddie wasn't a gay icon, he was just an ICON period. No need to use the word GAY."

"...but oh, honey, Freddie Mercury was a QUEER ICON. You cannot take the QUEER out of QUEEN. Let me show you how *queer* Freddie was." Taylor gestures to the giant anus at the center of the stage. Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon crawl out, wearing leather & harnesses.

The surviving members of Queen bow down in supplication as the surviving founding members of ACT UP come out onto the stage, followed by Ellen Page, who reads a transcript of activist Vito Russo's speech "Why We Fight": actupny.org/documents/whfi…

Taylor Mac asks the audience to sit in silence for a few moments. Taylor notices Sam Rockwell fidgeting in his seat, then says: "This might feel uncomfortable. But I'm not here for your comfort."

Two minutes of silence pass. The silence is finally broken by Viggo Mortensen, who yells out: "GIVE OUT AN AWARD!"

Taylor Mac smiles at Viggo: "I'll give out an award when I'm ready." VIGGO: "The show started an hour ago!" MAC: "Sometimes things go on for too long, and then they keep going. That's what I'm asking of you right now. I'm asking you to get to the other side of the discomfort.”

Another moment of silence. THEN --

A guitar strums. We hear a woman's voice. It's Jennifer Hudson! Singing "I'll Fight" from RBG.

But where is she?

The stage suddenly transforms from a giant anus...
into...

A beautiful vagina.

JHud emerges from the vagina! Belting the song!

As Jennifer Hudson sings, there's a commotion at the back of the theater. People crane their necks to see what's happening.

Melissa McCarthy gasps, as she realizes what's happening. Glenn Close stands, reverently. Other follow her example as we finally see --

It's Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wearing Christian Bale As Dick Cheney As a Gown. She's sitting on a throne and being carried by the entire supporting cast of The Favourite. They march her towards the stage.

RUTH BADER GINSBURG: "I'm here to present the first award of the evening. Can I have all the nominees for Best Cinematography join me please?" Lukasz Zal, Robbie Ryan, Caleb Deschanel, Alfonso Cuarón, and Matthew Libatique join Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They eat a meal together.

Taylor Mac returns to the stage, in a gown made out of Bradley Cooper’s gruff voice in A Star Is Born. “Bradley, you were snubbed in the directing category, but award snubs aren’t interesting enough to me. The work isn’t about being snubbed. It’s THERE but it’s not THE POINT.”

Taylor Mac asks the whole audience to make “ah ah ah ah” sounds, then performs Laurie Anderson’s Oh Superman, as —

An IN MEMORIAM film is shown. Not of people who died in previous year. No, this montage honors everyone who’s ever been glaringly omitted from past IN MEMORIAMs.

Willam Dafoe: “ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah...”

Yalitza Aparicio: “ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah...”

Amy Adams: [doesnt participate in the “ah ah ah” chanting, but is moved]

Taylor Mac invites literally every actor in the Dolby Theater up onto the stage. Everyone files up out of their seats and onto the stage, even Frances McDormand. Taylor hands out Neutrogena Makeup Remover Cleansing Towelettes, which they all use. The women let down their hair.

And then every actor in the room presents the award for Best Makeup & Hairstyling. "Without you, Goran Lundstrom, Pamela Goldammer, Jenny Shircore, Marc Pilcher Jessica Brooks, Greg Cannom, Kate Biscoe, and Patricia DeHaney, this is what we'd look like," they say.

Everyone returns to their seats except Regina King. She surprises us by singing an original song, with Taylor Mac backing her up on banjo. No, this song isn’t from a movie, & no it’s not nominated for anything. “Deal with it,” Mac tells people he knows are complaining on Twitter.

We’re on hour 3 of the telecast, but only 2 awards have been presented: Cinematography & Hair/Makeup. “This is by design,” Taylor Mac tells us. “We hold a sacred space for those the Academy tried to ignore. Next we honor Live Action Short...by showing them all in their entirety.”

Plush couches are wheeled onto the stage. Taylor Mac invites anyone who’s historically been marginalized in the entertainment industry (people of color, women, gays) who are in nose bleed seats to sit on stage & enjoy the best seats in the house. The stage is quickly swarmed.

The entire audience (both in the theater and at home) watches all the nominated live action short films in respectful silence. In between each short, Taylor Mac discusses the cultural and historic implications of each film.

After the live action short award is presented, Kevin Hart surprises everyone by coming out onto the stage and finally delivering an actual, heartfelt, genuine apology for the harm his words have caused the LGBTQ community. He does not make excuses. He simply apologizes.

Kevin Hart finishes his heartfelt apology. A dollhouse appears. Hart respectfully climbs inside. A gaggle of flamboyant gay boys carry Kevin Hart and his dollhouse towards the emergency exit, as Taylor Mac encourages the audience to chant: “We love our gay children.”

Taylor Mac drives onto the stage in the 1962 Cadillac DeVille from Green Book, but then — Taylor stands up and we realize the Cadillac is a new gown, made of old car parts!

TAYLOR: “We’re now moving into the 5th hour of our show. You know what we could have used? FILM EDITORS.”

TAYLOR MAC: “Now, to present Best Editing, live on TV where the category deserves to be...Michelle Yeoh & @ConstanceWu.”

The women appear in a pre-taped segment, recreating their mahjong scene from Crazy Rich Asians but with new dialogue about the Best Film Editing nominees.

The mahjong pre-tape is thrillingly edited & fraught with tension. Yeoh and Wu reveal the Best Film Editing winner. CUT TO: backstage, where Taylor Mac swims in a pool of money with the rest of the Crazy Rich Asians cast. This has been pre-taped & edited too. By film editors!

Taylor Mac, now wearing a “living gown” made of the rabbits not harmed while filming The Favourite, announces a Busby Berkeley tribute. Why? “Because I feel like it.” The stage floor opens to reveal a massive pool underneath. Swimmers recreate this, live:

https://twitter.com/largottes/status/1094838603950153730?s=21

Taylor Mac: “I believe irony is useful and fun at the beginning of a performance but tedious if held on to.” Everyone in the audience—and all of us at home—watches the synchronized swimmer-dancers and marvels at their beauty.

As the swimmers end their dance, the water in the pool begins to rise. The pool is overflowing, water now slowly spilling out into the audience! The front few rows begin to clear as people try to stay dry. Taylor Mac stands in the house, water up to his knees: "Embrace calamity."

Michelle Williams reaches out to a retreating Busy Philipps. "Embrace calamity," she repeats. Busy lets the train of her gown sink into the water. "EMBRACE CALAMITY," she yells to the others. Alfonso Cuaron and Ava DuVernay return to their seats. Everyone follows their example.

The water settles. Everyone in the Orchestra section has returned to their seats, where they're ankle deep in pristine, cerulean blue water. (A subtle nod to The Devil Wears Prada, one of Taylor Mac's favorite films. Anne Hathaway notices, then looks across the room at Meryl.)

(Meryl looks back at Anne, mouths the words "I noticed." A brief, almost ineffable look passes between them. Their thoughts race to the good times they had on that set, to moments of loss, moments of connection. Some sort of understanding only they share. It's over in a moment.)

Taylor Mac wades through the water, smiles at the camera and says: "Now to present the award for Best Sound Mixing...The Lesbian Avengers!"

Hour 6 of telecast. TAYLOR MAC: “We’re still facing the same patriarchal heteronormative bullshit we were dealing with at the first telecast 91 years ago. So no one leaves without signing an inclusion rider. If that means the ceremony goes for 91 hours, days, weeks...so be it.”

Taylor Mac enters wearing a gown made of headshots of actresses whose careers were maliciously torpedoed by Harvey Weinstein. “And now, to present the award for Best Casting—that’s right, we give an award for Best Casting when I host the Oscars—please welcome: the Wooster Group!”

The stage tilts up. Dozens of TV monitors lower from the rafters, showing live footage of: the Wooster Group—led by Frances McDormand & Willem Dafoe—filing in with camcorders. They all drop to the floor, then crawl up the raked stage. Their movements are precise & painfully slow.

As they climb, we see the faces of the Wooster Group in extreme close-up on the various TV screens. They all seem desperate, hungry.

Words flash across the screens:

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF ART?

HOW MUCH SHOULD WE VALUE AWARDS?

WOULD YOU LIKE YOUR COOKIE WARMED UP?

Every time a performer nears the top of the raked stage, they roll back to the bottom. This goes on for 12 minutes.

Until finally —
we see what they’re trying to reach.

Floating in the air—
Towards the top of the rake—
An envelope.
THE envelope.
The winner of Best Casting.

Lupita Nyong’o & Danai Gurira share a Chocolate Chip Peanut Crunch Clif Bar. Nicole Holofcener is heard loudly wondering if they’ll get to the screenplay categories anytime soon.

“Everything you’re feeling is appropriate,” Taylor Mac says, then sings Patti Smith’s Birdland.

Taylor Mac sits on Bradley Cooper’s lap in the audience, tells an anecdote about being recognized during anonymous sex at The Cock. Two seats over, Oprah gasps. Taylor leans across Lady Gaga’s lap to tell O: “You think we’re all Ellen but we queers are some kinky motherfuckers.”

While sitting in Bradley Cooper’s lap, Taylor Mac sings every Oscar nominated song *ever*, beginning with “The Continental” from 1934’s The Gay Divorcee through “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from this year’s Mary Poppins Returns.

In between each Academy Award nominated song, Taylor Mac talks to the audience about the cultural context of each song, looking at them through a queer lens. At one point, Matt Damon interrupts, but Taylor silences him with a withering “IT IS NOT YOUR TURN TO SPEAK, MATT DAMON.”

Taylor Mac: “Peter Farrelly is here, director of Green Book.” [Silence as Mac stares at Farrelly, really taking him in.] “I am not a teacher,” Taylor says, with a sigh. Then, to the whole crowd: “Smash the patriarchy.” Thousands of penis-shaped balloons fall from the ceiling.

Mild confusion. No one knows how to react to the penis balloons.

Until —

Glenn Close stands on the arms of her seat, cradling a dozen air-filled phalluses. She bites one.

POP.

She bites another. And another. And another.

POP.POP.POP.

“Fuck the patriarchy,” she exhales.

All of the actresses around Glenn join her, stomping on penis balloons with gusto. Christian Bale jumps from his seat, embracing the moment, stomping — POP.POP.POP!

Charlize Theron puts her hand on his shoulder. “Sit down, Christian,” she says. “This isn’t your moment.”

Christian Bale looks up at Taylor Mac for guidance. Mac, now wearing a gown made out of that moment in Shallow when Lady Gaga sings "Haaa-ah-ah-ah, haaawaah, ha-ah-ah-aaah,” nods at Bale: “Listen to Charlize, Christian. Sit, please.”

Taylor Mac enters in a new gown made patchwork-style from a jewel-toned velvet shirt, a shearling-trimmed rust suede jacket, a red knit turtleneck, & a rainbow suede vest — all authentic costume pieces from Blackkklansman. “We are now in 1970s Colorado Springs,” Mac says.

Timothee Chalamet enters from the back of the theater in a diamond-encrusted jock strap and couture harness, followed by Lucas Hedges & Ben Platt, both wearing angel wings. They carry a throne chair above their heads. In the chair: Blackkklansman costume designer Marci Rodgers.

Chalamet, Platt, and Hedges hand out costume pieces to people in the crowd. Authentic vintage 70s plaid shirts and leather jackets. A lot of rustling in the crowd as people put on the costume pieces over their gowns and tuxes.

Taylor Mac welcomes Franklin Leonard and Spike Lee to the stage for an in-depth, four-hour-long Q&A about Lee’s career, which ends with a surprise Lifetime Achievement Oscar.

The lights dim. Taylor Mac performs a stirring cover of “Mary Don’t You Weep,” then instructs the white people in the audience to google the song when they get home and listen to Prince & Aretha’s versions. “I’m not a teacher,” Mac says. “I’m a reminder.”

Then — the sound of drums at the back of the theater.

Heads turn. Ludwig Goransson recognizes the beat first. He stands and cheers, as —

A high school marching band enters: 97 black teenagers, playing an enthusiastic & rousing version of “All the Stars” from Black Panther.

A massive 30-FOOT-LONG PANTHER strolls onto the stage (actually a Julie Taymor-esque puppet being operated by twelve puppeteers) with Kendrick Lamar standing atop the great papier-mâché animal. He joins the marching band and sings his song.

It is now Day Four of the 91st Annual Academy Awards.

TAYLOR MAC: “How about we give out another Oscar?”

As the winners for Best Visual Effects leave the stage, Taylor Mac says: “Did you hear how they said they LOVE this? Love. I believe love when used as a verb is true and when used as a noun is a lie...turn to the person next to you and love them with your eyes. Right now. Do it.”

In the third row, Olivia Colman stares into Rachel Weisz’s eyes with love. Rachel Weiss holds her stare. Neither one of them blinks. It feels like the lights are dimming, everything around them is going out of focus, the Dolby Theatre is gone. All they have left is each other.

It feels like they’re swimming across an ocean together. Like all they have is each other and if one breaks this stare, the other will drown.

“O, O, Olivia,” Rachel says. “Most radiant, exquisite and unmatchable beauty.”

Olivia smiles: “You enchant me with Shakespeare?”

RACHEL WEISZ: “Do I offend your ears?”

OLIVIA COLMAN: “Quite the opposite. I beg you to continue.”

RW: “I’ll be Viola? And you’ll be—“

OC: “Olivia, of course. I’m always Olivia.”

Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz perform all the Viola/Olivia scenes from Twelfth Night, in the 3rd row of the Dolby. Of course they know all the lines, they could do this play in their sleep. Doing the dialogue for each other, without an audience, feels like some sort of prayer.

They finish reciting Twelfth Night. Rachel Weisz has not yet broken Olivia Colman’s stare. What now?

O for this moment never to end! thinks Rachel.

“I don’t want it to end either” says Olivia.

“Did I say that out loud?” asks Rachel.

“No” says Olivia.

Rachel’s heart bursts

“Isn’t this great?” says a disembodied voice. “Don’t you just love Taylor Mac??”

Rachel Weisz breaks Olivia Colman’s stare & they’re back in the Dolby Theatre, with a sigh. Emma Stone chatters at them from the 4th row: “I LOVE him, I mean judy, or *whatever* his pronoun is.”

“judy’s wonderful,” Rachel says, not bothering to school Emma on why judy prefers judy as a pronoun, figuring it’s at least a start that Emma’s trying to get it right, & besides she’s fucking pissed at Emma right now for interrupting her moment with O. Emma means well enough but—

—Rachel senses O pull away. The moment they had, *that* was their moment. It won’t be back. Rachel feels it in her soul. She looks up at the stage; Taylor Mac & Dolly Parton are performing “I Will Always Love You” as a duet. She looks back at O, but her seat’s empty. O is gone.

Taylor Mac enters wearing Julia Roberts’ wig from Mother’s Day and nothing else.

TAYLOR MAC: “To present the award for Best Original Screenplay — in a special nod to Roma — please welcome...
...all of your live-in housekeepers!”

HUNDREDS OF WOMEN FILL THE STAGE.

The women crowd around the podium, but there isn’t enough room for everyone on stage. They spill into the audience.

MAC: “Make room, people!” Anne Hathaway is the first to give up her seat. Several people follow. But not enough of them. “I’m talking to YOU, Nick Vallelonga!”

The Green Book screenwriter gives up his seat for one of the women. MORE women keep entering — everyone here appears to have a live-in housekeeper. Soon all the ticketed guests are standing in the aisles, while their housekeepers sit in their employers’ seats.

Taylor Mac addresses everyone standing in the wings and aisles: “I know many of you are upset right now. ‘I paid for that seat,’ you’re thinking. Which isn’t true. You paid for your ticket. But all the seats in this theater are mine....and now they belong to your housekeepers.”

It’s now Day 6 of the Oscar ceremony & people are getting hungry. Awkwafina and Allison Janney have eaten most of Lady Gaga’s gown, conveniently made out of frozen peas (a nod to the supermarket scene in A Star is Born). But otherwise there isn’t much edible clothing in the room.

At the next commercial break, Taylor Mac enters with a nurse: “If anyone would like a B12 shot, join me on-stage. In the meantime please welcome Eighth Grade’s Elsie Fisher and Jake Ryan with a special surprise.” The kids hand out chicken nuggets to the famished/grateful crowd.

By the time Elsie Fisher and Jake Ryan get to the mezzanine, where the writing nominees are sitting, they’ve run out of chicken nuggets.

On stage, Taylor Mac is singing a medley of “songs that were popular among radical lesbians in the ‘90s.”

Instead of the Academy president doing the same boring speech they always do every year, Taylor Mac invites @kat_blaque out on stage to read this great, informative twitter thread on #intersectionality:

https://twitter.com/kat_blaque/status/1097579362377904129?s=21

Tilda Swinton takes the stage to present the award for Best Animated Feature. Atop of her head, she wears a handcrafted, painstakingly-detailed model of the Dolby Theatre. As Tilda reads the nominees, the miniature Dolby's facade slowly opens, revealing...Taylor Mac on her head.

Taylor Mac climbs out of Tilda's Dolby Theatre hat. There are more people inside!

Like clowns emerging from a whimsical car -- or creatures coming forth from a primordial stew -- two more figures climb out of Tilda Swinton's head... It's...

Emma Stone!
And Scarlett Johansson!

Tilda, Emma, & Scarlett remove their gowns to reveal @AsianAFshow's "SCARLETT & EMMA & TILDA & MATT" t-shirts underneath. They apologize for the part they've played in whitewashing Asian roles in Hollywood & announce they're making donations to @aaldef as an act of reparation.

In the third row of the theater, Matt Damon stands up and says "actually--" but literally everyone around him tells him to shut up because it's not his turn to speak.

The GIANT ANUS set piece from earlier in the show is flown back in. But something's different. Somehow it has more...personality. (?!) And now it's...it's...it's TALKING. The anus smiles at Taylor Mac. "Feed me, Taylor," it says. They're doing a scene from Little Shop of Horrors!

GIANT ANUS (singing in a deep, rich baritone): "Feed me, Taylor / Feed me all night long / 'Cause if you feed me, Taylor / I can grow up big and strong"

[Taylor Mac feeds Matt Damon to the giant anus.]

Richard E. Grant grabs several bottles of Voss from the bar, hands them to Regina King & Laura Dern.

"Can you believe we've been at the Academy Awards for ten days?" Regina asks.

"I'd stay here for ten months," Richard says. "Never let it end."

"It might not," Laura says.

"There you guys are!" It's Eddie Vedder, making his way through the crowd to Grant, King, & Dern.

"They're doing an IN MEMORIAM for Straight White Men and Taylor Mac's singing Even Flow. Come on, come on!" They follow a giddy Vedder back into the theater.

Back in the theater, the stage transforms into a giant table. Taylor Mac invites everyone who doesn't identify as a Straight White Male to sit at the table. The stage is soon over-flowing with talented actors, directors, writers, designers, and technicians.

"This is where you belong," Mac says to all of the women and transfolk sitting around the giant table on-stage. "I realize the giant table is a bit on the nose, but some of the people in this room need obvious metaphors."

Taylor Mac strips naked on-stage, as Viggo Mortensen helps Taylor change into a new gown made out of all the think pieces written about how problematic Green Book was.

TAYLOR MAC: “And now, to present the award for Best Sound Editing...Camille Paglia!”

Camille Paglia enters, wearing a gown made out of Bradley Cooper’s blood. As she reads the names of the nominees, the lights dim! A spotlight hits her face! Her podium rises into the air and she sings "The Man That Got Away," in the style of Judy from the 1954 A Star Is Born.

Camilla Paglia rubs her face, smearing her make-up — and we see SHE ISN’T CAMILLA PAGLIA AT ALL. It’s Taylor Mac in Camilla Paglia drag!

Gay activists fill the stage & recreate the riot at Stonewall.

In the audience, Harrison Ford holds a sign that reads “Marsha threw first.”

The set has been destroyed. Gay activists lounge in the debris.

TAYLOR MAC: “Every year at the Oscars, we like to celebrate the glory of film. Please enjoy this montage of cis heterosexual actors playing queer and trans characters.”

The montage is seven hours long.

Taylor Mac narrates during the straight-actors-playing-gay-roles montage: “I don’t have anything against these actors—hello Tom Hanks—but I’m queer & I tell stories from a queer perspective, & that perspective is missing from so many of these films. And I miss the authenticity.”

TAYLOR MAC: “One of the things I’m always doing is hunting throughout our history for the queers. Where are they and how can they help us tell the story?”

Every out LQBTQ actor in Hollywood comes out onto the stage and does the final kick line from A Chorus Line.

It's the middle of the night. No one knows what night, or how long they've been here. But they all just realized 3 fundamental truths at the same time:

NUMBER 1: Richard E. Grant & Barbra Streisand finally met each other.

NUMBER 2: Dana Carvey is napping on an inflated penis.

And

NUMBER 3: Willem Dafoe is on-stage in character as Van Gogh, painting Starry Night onto Taylor Mac's bare torso, while Mac sings Satisfied from Hamilton with the entire cast of Black Panther.

Taylor Mac sings Bowie’s Modern Love. When —

Greta Gerwig runs across the stage! She stage-dives into the crowd, then encourages other current & former nominees who’ve never won an #Oscar to run with her!

“This is supposed to be fun,” she joy-screams! “Get out of your seats!”

Willem Dafoe climbs onto his chair, does a flip over Glenn Close’s head.

🎵Never gonna fall for (Modern Love)

Honorary #Oscar winner from 2015 Spike Lee cartwheels down his row.

🎵Walks beside me (Modern Love)

Amy Adams throws off her Louboutins and chases Greta Gerwig!

Diane Warren runs to Kathleen Kennedy, grabs her hand — Kathleen resists (“I won the Thalberg!”) — but Diane Warren doesn’t care! They run together!

🎵Walks on by (Modern Love)

Tom Cruise runs through the theater so fast no one even sees him.

🎵Gets me to the church on tiiiime

The song ends. There’s a rumbling on-stage. The floor is cracking open. Someone’s climbing out of the floor...

it’s...

Oh wow, it’s...

IT’S KATHARINE HEPBURN, RISING FROM THE DEAD, TO PRESENT ANOTHER AWARD. This time, covered in dirt like she intended.

https://twitter.com/aparkusfarce/status/1099693098765086722?s=21

On screens hanging over the stage, we see live video feed of Taylor Mac on the edge of Mary Poppins’ bathtub: “We’re almost at the end of our ceremony. Only 8 hours to go!”

Taylor falls back into the tub, then shoots out through the giant anus on stage & soars above the crowd.

Taylor Mac lands in a sea of tulle at the back of the theater, then sinks as if in quicksand. The tulle swallows judy.

Then.

The tulle undulates. Someone else is emerging.

It’s Billy Porter, in a gorgeous velvet tuxedo gown.

“I’m your host now,” Billy Porter says. #Oscars

Billy Porter struts up the aisle toward the stage. Every emergency exit door opens and several dozen beautiful black women enter. The women all wear classic, stately tuxedos. They have a commanding, butch swagger, as they follow Billy Porter & get in formation behind him.

Billy Porter's backup dancers fucking TEAR UP THE STAGE with the most amazing dance you've ever seen, while Billy Porter sings Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now." On the monitors above, we see clips of highlights from the current #Oscars telecast that started 12 days ago.

Billy Porter: “It’s march-into-the-streets time! We have an administration that thinks that it can, with a sentence, erase a whole group of people. And we’re not going to do anything about it? Transgender people don’t exist? F that.” He asks everyone to stand.

Billy Porter leads everyone out of the theater & back onto the red carpet, where they do their #OscarsRedCarpet interviews again. All the celebs use their privilege & influence to talk about the need for empathy & fighting for the rights of marginalized communities.

Billy Porter to Maria Menounos: “Life is about being positive & hopeful, choosing to be joyful, choosing to be encouraging, choosing to be empowering.”

To prove his point, all of tonight’s male nominees appear behind him, now decked out in their own unique @CSiriano gowns.

A new set piece appears. A MASSIVE SET OF FAKE FREDDIE MERCURY TEETH. The teeth eat Adam Lambert and the remaining living members of Queen. #oscars

Billy Porter announces that winners can speak as long as they want to speak and the band isn’t going to play them off because This Is Their Moment and they deserve to have this moment and if they go on too long we are going to CELEBRATE that tonight. #oscars

After Bette Midler finishes singing “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from Mary Poppins Returns, she surprises everyone—including the producers, Billy Porter, & Taylor Mac—by performing Hello, Dolly in its entirely! The entire Broadway cast is here! #OSCARS

Taylor Mac re-emerges from the giant anus on-stage, wearing Lady Gaga’s piano as a gown. Taylor Mac gets on all fours (the piano keys are his butt) as Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga take the stage. Lady Gaga fucking kills it singing Shallow (in this universe and every other one).

This also happens at the Taylor Mac & Billy Porter hosted #Oscars:

https://twitter.com/justincchang/status/1099871466525405184?s=21

Before reading names of the Best Actor noms, Taylor Mac & Billy Porter make-out for several minutes. When they stop to take a break, Taylor Mac says: “this is to make up for the queer representation that was missing from Green Book & Bohemian Rhapsody.” Back to kissing. #Oscars

Rami Malek wins Best Actor for playing Queer Icon Freddie Mercury. He dedicates his award to all the men who’ve been taken from us by the AIDS epidemic, all the art we lost, all the political activists we lost, all the friends we lost, all the family we lost. #altOscars #Oscars

Instead of presenting an award for Best Picture, Taylor Mac & Billy Porter invite all the queer people in the theater up onto the stage, all the people of color up onto the stage, all the women up onto the stage. They all sing the “aaaahAHAHahahAh” part of Shallow together...

...as Taylor Mac says: “That’s our show. Since the Academy Awards began 12 days ago, all your cars have been towed. Get home safely.” <a shy smile> “I believe something surprising should happen every ten seconds. Surprise doesn’t have to be big; it can be a breath. Goodnight.”

<end of show/thread>