Seth MacFarlane
2013 Oscars host Seth MacFarlane announced on Monday that he will not be returning for the 2014 show. Reuters

"We Saw Your Boobs," a musical number led by "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane at the start of the 2013 Academy Awards, has been derided as "sexist" and "misogynistic" in the less than 24 hours since the Oscars ended, as news organizations, blogs and viewers react with disgust to the Sunday night display.

The first-time Oscars host made a number of jokes deemed by many viewers to be racist, sexist and just plain crude, but the "We Saw Your Boobs" sketch seemed to take the cake, as the online response was swift and fierce.

The musical bit was done in the style of an old Fred Astaire dance routine, but it failed to delight most observers as its content was widely derided as more crass than class.

Feauring a line-up of tuxedo-clad dancers led by MacFarlane, the song's lyrics consisted of little more than a list of actresses who had bared their breasts on film and the movies in which they did so, with no redeeming value or purpose to support the display.

Click play below to watch the routine in its entirety:

MacFarlane has built a career on silly, offensive and random jokery, but this song was a low point in the minds of many Oscar viewers, many of whom are likely not used to his particular brand of raw humor.

Buzzfeed published a list of "9 Sexist Things That Happened At The Oscars," featuring in the No. 1 slot a video of the "We Saw Your Boobs" song, and going on to lambast MacFarlane for a series of other tasteless moments during the ceremony.

Even the august New Yorker got in on the MacFarlane-bashing, publishing a lengthy takedown of his performance, and particularly of "We Saw Your Boobs":

"The women were not showing their bodies to amuse Seth MacFarlane but, rather, to do their job. Or did they just think they were doing serious work?" the magazine's Amy Davidson wrote. "You girls think you’re making art, the Academy, through MacFarlane, seemed to say, but all we—and the 'we' was resolutely male—really see is that we got you to undress. The joke’s on you."

New York magazine also got in on the hatefest, going so far as to identify a pair of actresses they would have rather seen running the night's events:

"From now on, any actress who considers going topless for a movie role gets to wonder if they'll be mocked on national television in front of their most accomplished peers. Why couldn't Amy Poehler and Tina Fey have hosted tonight, again?"

But not all the reviews of Macfarlane's night at the helm of the Academy Awards condemned the man as a sexist pig. Mediaite went a few steps further in a thoughtful critique, pointing out that though "We Saw Your Boobs" is getting the most negative buzz, "he also made plenty of jokes about race, religion and other politically incorrect subjects."

Yet that doesn't come as a surprise, Mediaite maintains: "I would argue that MacFarlane was far tamer than anyone could have expected, given everything that’s happened on Family Guy over the last decade and a half, from making fun of Sarah Palin’s son Trig to Brian and Stewie sharing a high-five over 9/11, among many, many more examples."

And some critics seemed to enjoy it, including The Observer's Jason Solomon, who tweeted the following as the controversy began to brew:

"the We Saw Your Boobs number went down fine here. it was funny. Chill. Joan Collins told me she thought it was funny. So, final answer.

No matter your personal opinions on MacFarlane and his Oscars-hosting debut, one thing is certain: "We Saw Your Boobs" will be remembered as the most controversial of the evening's many gags.

Let us know what you thought of the MacFarlane hosting experience in the comments section below.

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