The night could have gone terribly wrong at the 88th Academy Awards in the light of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. The Twitter hashtag was coined by the black lawyer and magazine editor, April Reign, to protest against the lack of racial diversity in the Oscar nominations. Meanwhile, the Academy had already enlisted Chris Rock as the host, and everybody was waiting to see how the comedian would tackle an issue that has gained greater traction in his country since the rise in police killings of unarmed blacks and the political ascendancy of the divisive Donald Trump.

Rock set the cat among the pigeons hours before the ceremony, when he tweeted a picture of himself dressed in a black tuxedo and writing “Cutting the fat off my monologue” on his script with a rainbow-coloured pen. This wasn’t just any old picture. It was a carefully constructed statement that he was issuing to justify his refusal to boycott the Oscars, unlike other black celebrities like Spike Lee, Ava Du Vernay, and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.

The message was clear: Rock was going to address the issue of the lack of diversity and racial bias without mincing words. He did just that. With one last-minute change.

He switched to a glaringly white tuxedo, beginning his monologue with a sight gag that already had viewers in his pockets. “I’m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People’s Choice Awards,” he said. He shared his anxieties about hosting this year’s event, recollecting how people dissuaded him not to take up the job when he was asked to host. “Chris, you should boycott. Chris, you should quit. You should quit.”

Rock kept returning to the piquancy of the situation. He made the crowds laugh at themselves but also made them conspicuous of the absence of a person of diversity sitting next to them even as they chortled to such barbs as “Is Hollywood racist?”

He pointed to the irrelevance of all-white cinema for black movie-goers in a video segment in which he interviewed people outside a theatre in Compton, no less (a reference to the hip-hop biopic Straight Outta Compton, which was virtually shut out of the Oscars).

Some of the humour, which referred to slavery, race riots and the Civil War, was highly incendiary for an Oscar ceremony. Just when the audience appeared to be getting nervous, Rock ushered children into the glittering crowds to raise charity money in return for cookies. He wrapped up the evening by saying, “Black lives matter.”

The rest of the event was as dull as expected. The presenters went through the motions, Sarah Silverman flubbed her lines, and even the usually dependable Tina Fey seemed at a loss of words. Only Rock, with some help from fellow black performer Kevin Hart, had the best lines of the night.

Several black faces were noticed on the stage and the red carpet. Tokenism, or a sign of things to come? The rock has been released from its slingshot, and something has got to break.