The 2013 Academy Awards featured Michelle Obama announcing the Best Picture winner in a live satellite connection from the White House. As a symbol of female empowerment and a formidable Harvard-educated lawyer, the First Lady looked out of place concluding a broadcast dominated by one of the raunchiest, most misogynistic hosts in Oscar history.

The evening began with Seth MacFarlane’s bawdy song about ogling bare breasts of famous stars on movie screens, and ended with Mrs. Obama gushing about the redemptive power of that same glittering industry.  Her pairing with co-presenter Jack Nicholson also represented a bizarre coupling, even by Hollywood standards: the First Lady champions a healthy lifestyle and wholesome values, while the proudly out-of-shape, drug-indulging, aging playboy Nicholson continues to boast of his unhealthy life style and unapologetically unwholesome values.