Parks and Recreation Star Amy Poehler Rips Oscars for Snubbing Comedies, Calling It Hot Bulls**t

Comedy keeps getting the cold shoulder at the Oscars. Amy Poehler just said the quiet part out loud, and honestly, she is not wrong.

Amy Poehler: not having it with the Oscars' comedy blind spot

On the latest episode of her podcast 'Good Hang with Amy', the former 'Saturday Night Live' star had Olivia Colman on to talk up their new movie The Roses. Mid-convo, Colman phoned her co-star Benedict Cumberbatch, who dropped the old truism that if you can nail comedy, you can do anything. He meant it, too.

'It's some hot bulls**t.'

That was Poehler on how comedy gets treated at the Academy Awards. Her point: every year, comedic performances and films get overlooked while serious dramas clean up. She also tossed some love at Colman and Cumberbatch, saying both can shift between funny and dramatic without breaking a sweat. It was one of those moments where someone finally says what a lot of people in the business already think.

The bigger picture: when comedy breaks through, it usually gets dark

To be fair, comedy does slip into the Oscar conversation now and then — but it often has a dark edge, or gets labeled as satire. Recent examples that actually made a dent with voters include:

• The Favourite
• Jojo Rabbit
• Barbie
• Don't Look Up
• Everything Everywhere All at Once — which went all the way and won Best Picture

Even then, straight drama still dominates most categories most years. And if we are talking genres the Academy tends to ignore, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror are still largely waiting outside the velvet rope too.

So what is 'The Roses'?

The Roses pulls from Warren Adler's 1981 novel The War of the Roses. The film follows chef Ivy (Olivia Colman) and architect Theo (Marvel star Benedict Cumberbatch) as they try to fix their already-tense marriage — right as Theo loses his job and Ivy's career suddenly takes off. That one-two punch turns their attempt at reconciliation into something a lot more catastrophic. It is in cinemas now.

Quick reminder: Amy knows comedy

If anyone has standing to call this out, it is Poehler. She has a long list of acclaimed comedy work: 'Parks and Recreation', 'Inside Out', 'Mean Girls' — and that is before you even get to the SNL years. Her frustration tracks with, well, decades of awards-season inside baseball.