The elephant in the room? Consider it addressed.



From the moment emcee Chris Rock first appeared in his white dinner jacket to the closing-credits playing out under Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," the 88th Academy Awards missed no opportunity to acknowledge the Academy's disastrous PR stemming from a second straight year without any acting nominees of color. The jokes and apologies referencing the #OscarsSoWhite controversy were so numerous that they distracted from the fact that there were 24 awards to hand out, many of them to surprised and emotional winners. As a result, like many of this year's nominated films, the 3 1/2-hour Oscar telecast was as much about endurance as entertainment. Still, there were some moments that, for good or ill, viewers won't soon forget.