In the wake of the furore over the comedian, it seems no one may be good enough to present the TV coverage of the Academy Awards ceremony

To the United States, where the crisis in Oscars hosting continues to rage, reminding us that one of the major advantages of late-stage capitalism is the sheer volume of attention it can afford to lavish on debates over who will or won’t be reading prepared joke-effect lines come 24 February.

As is only right, the Academy Awards host is given similar attention to a supreme court pick, even though the Oscars is essentially a ceremony where an on-set accountant can’t even hand the right best picture winner envelope to Warren Beatty. Oscars organisers traditionally claim their telecast is watched by more than a billion people – “They keep reminding you, like, every two seconds,” Cate Blanchett once revealed – though last year’s was in fact watched by 26.5 million Americans. I guess the other 973,500,000 ratings are global viewers coming home from a day down the Congolese copper mine or in the Chinese battery factory to debate whether you really can simply whitewash fired director Bryan Singer out of the Bohemian Rhapsody story.

Anyhow, as you may know, this year’s Oscars had a host all lined up in the form of Kevin Hart, but he failed a series of public hearings over past homophobic tweets. Since Kevin’s decision to be stepped down, the talk of who might replace him has been feverish. According to reports, if he had only apologised in a much-billed appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last week, Kevin would have been right back in. But he seems to have been unable to – indeed, he has since cast the row as an opportunity for growth for others. “You can’t change without a understanding of what GROWTH means,” he Instagrammed huffily. “Please grasp this and use it in 2019.” Clearly, the true growth in this situation would be Kevin’s critics growing beyond the need to require growth from him.

The upshot of all this is that the Oscars are reportedly considering having no host. Thank goodness the Academy refuses to be put off taking themselves seriously, no matter what. If literally no one can do it, it’s clear this culturally sacred role must be more important than we even realised.