Rock cracks tough race jokes to open 'whitewashed' Oscars

Los Angeles: Oscars host Chris Rock opened the annual show of glitz and pageantry honoring cinema's finest Sunday with a salvo of hard-hitting jokes targeting the lack of racial diversity among the nominees.

Tinseltown's elite gathered for the glittering celebration with survival epic "The Revenant" leading the charge for golden statuettes -- but a row over the lack of ethnic minority acting hopefuls overshadowed the proceedings.

"Well, I'm here at the Academy Awards -- otherwise known as the white People's Choice awards. You realize if they nominated hosts, I wouldn't even get this job. Y'all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now," joked Rock, 51, as he began his opening monologue.

For the second year running, all 20 nominees in the main acting categories are white, and an angry social media backlash under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite has grabbed the awards season headlines.

An audience expected to number several hundred million around the world tuned in as Rock, who is hosting despite calls for him to join a boycott, gave the Academy members a tongue-lashing from the start.

Insiders say he completely rewrote his opening monologue in the wake of the scandal to hold the Academy's 6,000-plus voting members, overwhelmingly white men, to account.

"Things are going to be a little different at the Oscars. This year, in the 'In Memoriam' package, it's just going to be black people that were shot on their way to the movies," Rock joked.