IT’S the night America gets to celebrate the icons, themes, dramas and stars of its popular culture that each week lure tens of millions of people in rare communion to cinemas across the country.

So what better way to mark the occasion than by honouring works whose principal subjects are abortion, euthanasia, drug abuse, sexual profligacy and mild depressioninduced alcoholism? For those who think America is in the grip of a religious fervour that is wiping out sexual and moral tolerance and frog-marching the country towards a new Puritanism, tomorrow’s Oscar ceremony might be a useful corrective.

The themes of the most prominent nominated films — Million Dollar Baby (euthanasia), Ray (sex, drugs and R and B), Vera Drake (abortion) and Sideways (sex, misery, alcohol), are some way from the “moral values” that have supposedly been in the ascendant in George W. Bush’s America.

Only Finding Neverland, the story of J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, comes close to measuring up to the supposedly enforced wholesomeness that has had entertainment executives cowering. (Needless to say, it’s not expected to win much). But best of all, if you really still think licence is dead in America, take a look at who’s hosting the marathon extravaganza broadcast on network television tomorrow night — Chris Rock, a buck-toothed, shrill-voiced comedian whose stand-up routine is usually conducted in what cultural philologists have called “f*** patois”, in which every second or third word is some verbal form of the multi-purpose expletive.

The Rock selection is explicitly designed to appeal to Americans’ baser tendencies. The possibility that he might somehow shock the nation, à la Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl appearance a year ago (and despite a five-second tape delay introduced since then) is surely the main reason he’s there.

The aim is to arrest the slide in the appeal of Hollywood’s awards shows. In 1998 when Titanic swept the board (something ominously appropriate in that winning title that year) 87 million people tuned in. Last year (Lord of The Rings) the number was, symbolically, precisely half that. Worse, there is firm evidence that the trend may be accelerating. Both the Golden Globes (the precursor to the Oscars) and the Grammies (the music industry’s self-love fest) have seen their audiences slashed by more than 20 per cent this year from last.

Given that none of this year’s best-picture nominees has been a huge box-office success (perhaps those cultural commentators are right after all) and that Johnny Depp’s Barrie and Leonardo di Caprio’s Howard Hughes in The Aviator, are the only young beaux a predominantly female audience is likely to swoon over, the Academy is fearful that viewers will pass again.

Enter Chris Rock. The choice of this brilliant if controversial comedian is inspired.

Not only is he black, therefore ensuring a notable threshold is crossed in a notoriously monochrome business (Whoopi Goldberg has presented in the past, but Rock seems much more the genuine article, somehow), he is also an outsider of sorts; an iconoclast. Shortly after his role as MC had been confirmed a few weeks ago, he gave an interview to Entertainment Weekly in which he poured scorn on the whole event and noted its lack of appeal to black audiences.

“Come on! It’s a fashion show!” he shrieked. “Who gives a f***? They’re clothes. What straight black man sits there and watches the Oscars? Show me one.”

His remarks supposedly ruffled some finely coiffed feathers in Hollywood: at least one nominated starlet was said to be shocked that Mr Rock did not seem to be taking the event seriously enough. This is, of course, an absurd criticism. Short of getting Nelson Mandela to take the microphone for the evening, you couldn’t find anyone who takes Hollywood seriously enough for Hollywood.

And this insouciance is surely the point. The genius of the Rock choice is that, even if he plays the fool, he’ll not only bring in the audience, but perhaps a different, younger, blacker audience (it’s also notable that 5 of the top 20 acting nominations have gone to black actors). He will confer the ultimate accolade. Hollywood will have been embraced even by its iconoclastic critics.

It will surely be the most welcome news to an entertainment business that these days often finds itself confused, under siege from a vengeful nation’s changing mores, unloved, suffering from a sharp decline in audiences both for its art and for its self-recognition. This year at least, an insecure Hollywood will be able to prove to itself, that, as someone once said: They love me. They really do love me.

• Sir Sean Connery and Dame Judi Dench have topped a poll of British screen stars.

  Connery, the 74-year-old Scottish star still best known for playing James Bond, was voted the best British actor of all time, followed by Sir Anthony Hopkins and the late Sir Alec Guinness.

  In the Sky survey, Dame Judi, 70, beat Julie Walters and Elizabeth Taylor, 72.

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