During the Oscars a couple of weeks ago, John Cena really, really didn’t want to take part in Jimmy Kimmel‘s skit commemorating the 50th anniversary of a streaker breezing his way through the ceremony. “I changed my mind,” a seemingly nude Cena told Kimmel from behind a wall during the broadcast. “I don’t want to do the streaker bit anymore.” But Kimmel cajoled him, and out came the wrestler-turned-actor, looking sheepish with only a winners’ card as his championship belt. Rolling Stone declared it one of the ceremony’s wildest moments.
It turns out, three people who tuned in to the Academy Awards didn’t like the shtick much more than Cena himself. So they complained to the FCC. One of the people who were offended titled their complaint, “Indecent Prime Time TV.” Rolling Stone was able to review the irate messages via a Freedom of Information Act request.
“There is no reason why a grown man will come to national television like a streaker and molest and abuse all the children who will hear and see this in TV and in the various media the following day,” wrote one irate viewer from Newark. “There is need for Cena and the Oscar organizers to be cancelled for promoting gratuitous and inappropriate nudity in such horrific levels that they deserve boycott in the first order.”
“What more can I say….other than an undresses [sic] man coming out on stage with only and piece of paper covering his private parts!” wrote another, from Bluefield, West Virginia. “Do your job! Get this filth off our TVs!”
And finally, another viewer raised a complaint with which Cena might agree. “John Cena’s almost-complete nudity during the Oscars on March 12th, 2024, was abhorrent,” wrote a Brandon, Mississippi resident. “If that had been a woman, the world would have ended.” The person titled their complaint, “Double standards with nudity.” During the bit, Cena — who is 46 and is still in what looks like peak physical health — said (jokingly), “The male body is not a joke.” And Kimmel responded, “Mine is.”
The last viewer drove home their point by adding, “It’s not OK and you won’t care.”
The audience at the awards show itself seemed too stunned — and amused — to reflect on if people would care about the bit. After an announcer called out the nominees for Costume Design, Cena was clad in a curtain like it was a toga.
If this is the sort of thing that irritates some people, just wait until they see Cena as a mermaid.
