Will Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘The Dictator’ Walk The Oscar Red Carpet? 
 
 UPDATED 5:30 PM WITH MORE DETAILS 
 
 EXCLUSIVE… BREAKING 3PM… The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has pulled actor Sacha Baron Cohen‘s tickets from the 84th Academy Awards. This means he is banned from attending the Oscars even though he is an Academy member and one of the stars from Hugo, Paramount’s 11-nominated movie and Best Picture contender. “Unless they’re assured that nothing entertaining is going to happen on the Red Carpet, the Academy is not admitting Sacha Baron Cohen to the show,” Paramount just told me. The reason is that a proposal reached the Academy for Baron Cohen to strut the Red Carpet in full costume as his title character in the upcoming Paramount comedy The Dictator. UPDATE AT 5:30 PM: Later today, faced with all the bad publicity resulting from its action, the Academy tried to parse what it did when questioned by some media outlets. But the fact is that, this morning, the Academy’s Managing Director Of Membership Kimberly Rouch phoned Paramont’s awards staff to say Baron Cohen’s tickets had been pulled unless he gives the Academy assurances ahead of time promising not to show up on the Red Carpet in costume and not to promote the movie on the Red Carpet. The Academy made it clear that, without those assurances, it would not issue him the tickets. So he’s banned.* 
 
 Of course, the next best thing to that publicity stunt is all the media coverage which this ban is going to generate for Baron Cohen’s film. So the Academy has decided to act like dictators about the actor playing The Dictator. Ugh. 
 
 Sancha Baron Cohen Today Show Video 
 
 Loosen up, people. Frankly, the Academy looks like uptight wankers with this treatment of one of the globe’s funniest comedians. The Academy merely had to say no when that proposal was presented to it. Everyone involved in the ceremony was adamantly against it on the grounds that it makes a mockery of what Hollywood considers its most prestigious event. Instead, the Academy clearly wants another overly long, ridiculously reverential show about movies no one bothered to see where the best thing about the telecast will be the comeback of popular host Billy Crystal at age 63. 
 
 UPDATE: Is Academy Blinking On Banning Sacha Baron Cohen From Oscars 2012? 
 
 The Dictator is a spoof about the “heroic story of a Middle Eastern dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy never comes to the country he so lovingly oppressed”. Whether the fact that the 84th Academy Awards will be beamed into 200 countries had anything to do with this ban is unclear. But it is highly unusual for the Academy to pull a member’s tickets. An Oscars spokesperson acknowledged to Deadline yesterday: ”We would hope that every studio knows that this is a bad idea. The Red Carpet is not about stunting.” Oh really? Then why did Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park crossdress down the Red Carpet as J-Lo and Gwyneth Paltrow in evening gowns in 2000? Or Ben Stiller appear as an Oscar presenter in full blue Avatar makeup and hair in 2010? 
 
 Deadline reported yesterday that Baron Cohen’s plan was to come dressed as The Dictator and then change into a tuxedo and attend the Oscars as planned. He wasn’t scheduled to present an award, but he was arriving at Kodak Theatre as part of the Paramount contingent. Now he can’t do even that. Paramount has a Best Picture nominee in the Martin Scorsese-directed Hugo in which Baron Cohen plays the train station inspector of the movie about an orphan in 1930s Paris. 
 
 At the 2007 Oscars, Baron Cohen was asked to be a presenter and said he would do it only if he could be in character as Borat. And Oscars’ Powers That Be said, “No way.” He didn’t attend. But this is the first time he has been officially banned from the show. 
 
 Purists feel that the Oscars is no place for such in your face promotion. The Academy hasn’t even allowed movies to be advertised during the Oscarcast, until this year. Then again, these Oscars have very little suspense because it’s a forgone conclusion that many of the winners of the marquee categories are already known and The Artist will win Best Picture. The prospect of Baron Cohen’s Red Carpet walk was the closest thing to drama. 
 
 This would not have been Baron Cohen’s first time upstaging an awards show. To promote Bruno, he flew through the air at the MTV Movie Awards and landed with his crotch in the face of Eminem, who later admitted the stunt was rehearsed. And a trailer for The Dictator certainly was one of the raciest ever allowed by the MPAA during the Super Bowl, where Baron Cohen’s character was hilariously depicted running a competitive race while and leg-shooting rivals with a starter pistol as they got close to him. 
 
 Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here. ||||| Academy cringing over news of Sacha Baron Cohen’s rumored Oscars stunt Rumored to be hitting red carpet in 'The Dictator' costume 
 
 Sacha Baron Cohen has been blacklisted from the red carpet on Hollywood's biggest night. 
 
 The actor's tickets for Sunday's 84th Academy Awards ceremony have been rescinded amid fears he would attend in full costume as the character from HIS upcoming flick "The Dictator," Deadline.com reported. 
 
 The unusual move was taken by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences after rumors circulated that Cohen would violate the decorum of the awards show with the publicity stunt. 
 
 "Unless they're assured that nothing entertaining is going to happen on the Red Carpet, the Academy is not admitting Sacha Baron Cohen to the show," an insider told Deadline's Nikki Finke. 
 
 Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images 
 
 Cohen had been invited to attend the Oscars as a member of the cast of the best picture nominee “Hugo”. 
 
 The 40-year-old British comic, however, has built his career on edgier material - famously staying in character as he turns unsuspecting passersby into the butts of his jokes in movies like 2006's "Borat: Cultural Learnings of AMerica for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" and 2009's "Bruno." 
 
 His role in the upcoming "The Dictator" was described by the Hollywood Reporter as a “sex-crazed Gaddafi-meets-Hussein ruler who fights to stop democracy from coming to his country.” 
 
 The movie, which also stars Anna Faris, B.J. Novak and John C. Reilly, is slated to be released May 11. ||||| Contrary to reports, the Academy has not yet pulled Sacha Baron Cohen's Oscar tickets over his plan to appear on the red carpet in character for his next movie — but that could still happen 
 
 According to an executive with the Academy who did not wish to be identified, AMPAS officials have been in touch with representatives for Baron Cohen since they learned of his plan to attend the Oscars in costume as the title character in "The Dictator." 
 
 Their message to British comic was clear: "Our red carpet is not for stunting." 
 
 The Academy is now waiting for a response from Baron Cohen's camp; once they receive one, they will decide whether he can use the tickets he received as a cast member of the Best Picture nominee "Hugo." 
 
 Baron Cohen would have done red carpet interviews in character – and if his past appearances as Borat and Bruno were any indication, would have used the occasion to be disruptive (and probably pretty funny). 
 
 Also read: 'The Dictator' Trailer: Sacha Baron Cohen Laughs in the Face of Tyranny (Video) 
 
 Baron Cohen caused problems for the Oscars four years ago, when they asked him to present but he insisted on doing so only in character, as Borat. The Academy refused. 
 
 The Oscars have a history of being uncomfortable with the unpredictable. Last year, AMPAS executives were worried that Banksy, director of the nominated documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop," would try to take the stage in disguise. 
 
 Speaking of a conversation he had with representatives for the elusive graffiti artist, Academy president Tom Sherak said, "We suggested to them that it might be a good idea that if he did win, one of them would accept in his place – that it would not be dignified for the Academy to have somebody come up wearing a monkey's head." 
 
 (Angry reps for Banksy disputed that he ever wore a monkey mask in public.) 
 
 Also read: Steve Pond's Oscar Picks: 'The Artist' Will Win, but Should It? 
 
 The Academy wasn't amused in 2000, when Best Song nominees Trey Parker and Matt Stone ("South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut") showed up in knockoffs of the famous awards-show gowns worn by Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow. 
 
 Parker and Stone had not cleared their plan with the Academy before that show – and, they said, they got plenty of dirty looks (plus a thumbs-up from Michael Caine) as they walked the red carpet. 
 
 Baron Cohen was reportedly planning to do something similar, wearing his "Dictator" outfit for an in-character trip down the red carpet and then changing into a tux for the show. 
 
 Using an Oscar appearance to promote an upcoming film is not, of course, completely unknown. This year's host, Billy Crystal, did just that in 1991 when he made his entrance on a horse before the release of "City Slickers," and Ben Stiller appeared onstage in his "Starsky and Hutch" costume in 2004. 
 
 But those were onstage, where it was sanctioned and controlled. The red carpet is something else – out there, the Academy doesn't like wild cards. Related Articles: 'The Dictator' Trailer: Sacha Baron Cohen Laughs in the Face of Tyranny (Video) Steve Pond's Oscar Picks: 'The Artist' Will Win, but Should It? 2012 Oscars: Complete List of Nominees
– Sacha Baron Cohen has been told he's not welcome at this Sunday's Academy Awards unless he promises he won't arrive dressed up as a Middle Eastern military dictator. Oscar tickets are in jeopardy for the creator of Borat and Bruno because of fears that he will arrive on the red carpet in character as the "sex-crazed Gadhafi-meets-Hussein" title character of his latest spoof, The Dictator, reports the New York Daily News. Baron Cohen had been invited as one of the stars of Best Picture contender Hugo, "but our red carpet is not for stunting," an Academy official tells Reuters. With most of this year's Oscar winners looking like a foregone conclusion, "the prospect of Baron Cohen’s red carpet walk was the closest thing to drama" viewers could expect this year, notes Nikki Finke at Deadline. Maybe the Academy feared a repeat of the funnyman's 2009 MTV Awards stunt, when Bruno descended from the ceiling in angel wings and landed butt-first on Eminem.