Every Oscar season, we do this dance: the Academy cries serious, comedy gets sidelined, and everyone pretends making people laugh is easy. Amy Poehler, unsurprisingly, is not here for it.
The spark: a Good Hang chat with Benedict Cumberbatch
On her podcast Good Hang, the Parks and Recreation alum dug into the Academy's long-running comedy blind spot with guest Benedict Cumberbatch. He tossed out the evergreen truth that comedy is the harder skill, and Poehler turned the dial up from there.
"If you can do comedy, you can do anything, I really do believe that."
"Of course. You don’t have to tell me, babe. Every single year at the Oscars, everybody gets blanked and all the serious people get up and accept and accept and accept, and it’s some hot bull---- because comedy is not easy."
Poehler also called out how performers like Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman jump between comedy and drama without breaking a sweat, which she thinks deserves way more respect than it gets on awards night. Hard to argue.
The bigger picture: why comedy keeps getting iced out
This is not a new phenomenon. The Academy loves grief, trauma, and capital-A Acting. Comedy? Even when critics rave and audiences show up, it has to sneak in through a side door labeled satire or dramedy. The message, intentional or not, is: the heavier it is, the more important it must be.
- Get Out, BlacKkKlansman, and The Favourite: they cracked the nominations partly because their darker edges signaled 'serious.'
- Everything Everywhere All at Once and Anora: proof that films with real comedic energy can still win Oscars when they also deliver emotional heft.
- 2025 check-in: Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia and Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly lean dramatic (with jokes), so they stay in the awards conversation.
- Meanwhile, straightforward comedies like Friendship, Good Fortune, and The Naked Gun have strong reviews but remain long shots for major categories. Same uphill grade, different year.
Why Poehler's point lands
There is an inside-baseball truth here: the Academy tends to equate suffering with substance. But comedy demands precision, timing, tonal control, and often the exact same emotional range that drama gets credit for. When actors can toggle between the two, it is not a cute party trick; it is mastery. Poehler is basically saying: recognize that skill set with the same seriousness you lavish on the heavy stuff.
Until the Oscars treat making audiences laugh like an art and not a bonus feature, we are going to keep having this exact conversation every winter. And, frankly, she is right to keep poking the bear.