This article by Alissa Wilkinson is entitled "Why no one wants to host the Oscars" and that's wrong. I'll betcha there's fifty thousand people in Hollywood who would say yes in a minute if they were asked but they'd never be asked. The Academy doesn't want them. The problem is that anyone on any list of folks the Academy would want really doesn't need the job.
If you're on that list — and I can't imagine you aren't — you don't need the probable grief that will come when critics pan the whole show. They almost always do because the Oscarcast can never be as good as we want it to be or remember it to have been, Once Upon a Time. You also have to be prepared for the headlines that say you hosted the lowest-rated Academy Awards ceremony ever. That's likely no matter who does it and it won't do your reputation as a star with a huge following any good.
Kevin Hart has more offers for films than I have comic books and when he plays a live stand-up date, tickets go on sale at Noon and the scalper sites are asking $800 a seat by 12:05. The question is not why he no longer wants to host the Oscars. It's why he even considered the damn job in the first place. My theory? When it was first mentioned, it sounded like a great affirmation of his stardom, elevating him to the stature of a Bob Hope or Johnny Carson. Then he realized it hasn't been that for a lonnnng time.
And then you have the fundamental question of what the host is supposed to do. Is it his/her job to guide the proceedings with respect and rise above controversy and politics and chaos? Or is it to get tune-in and eyeballs? I don't think you can do both…and I'm not sure the latter is possible at all.
People just don't care about the Oscars as they once did. The linked article is suggesting that deploying multiple hosts — as is now apparently the plan — is likely to be a disaster. This is true but it'll be just as true if they get [INSERT NAME HERE] to step in and Master that Ceremony. At least with many hosts, people will blame that decision if (when) they pan the telecast and the shame won't fall mainly on one brave star. Maybe that's the best of a lot of bad choices.
That is, if they won't get Gilbert Gottfried. I still think that's a great idea. Really.