Sasha Baron Cohen booted as presenter from Oscars because of Avatar sketch?

UPDATE: E! talked to Cameron about the skit. He said he had no clue, then added this, “I don’t produce the Oscars. If they want to poke fun at Avatar Sunday, that’s OK by me, I’m sure we’ll laugh.” Cameron knows that jokes are a part of the evenings festivities, “The Oscars are a celebration of movies…even the gaffes and out-of-bounds stuff are all part of the fun.” So there you go. Cohen, you want your job back? Cameron isn’t going to be a doucher about it.

Over a week ago, it was announced that Sasha Baron Cohen would present at this years Oscars. Now suddenly, his name is missing from the list.

Why?

An insider familiar with the Oscars told Vulture that Cohen and Ben Stiller had an AVATAR sketch planned for the evening. Yesterday, it got the axe from the shows producer, Bill Mechanic because he was worried James Cameron might get so pissed he’d leave the during the Oscar broadcast on live TV.

Really? Eminem got a face full of crotch and Mechanic doesn’t think Cameron could deal with this sketch? Must be either painfully unfunny or extremely racy. Here’s the details the insider gave about the sketch:

“Baron Cohen planned to appear onstage as a blue-skinned, female Na’vi, with Stiller translating “her” interplanetary speech. As the skit went on, though, it would become clear that Stiller wasn’t translating properly, because Cohen would grow ever more upset. At its climax, an infuriated Baron Cohen would pull open “her” evening gown to reveal that s/he was pregnant, knocked up with Cameron’s love child, and would go on to confront her baby daddy as if s/he were on Jerry Springer.”

That doesn’t sound so bad. I’m sure there was way more to it than that, but still. Someone had to see this coming, it was the biggest movie of the year. There’s also numerous parody videos of the film all over the internet. Maybe they just didn’t expect Cohen to go there.

Cohen’s spokesman, Matt Labov gave this comment, “I hate to use the term, because it’s so ubiquitous, but there were ‘creative differences.’ Nothing acrimonious, but both sides felt that since they couldn’t agree, [Cohen] might as well remain in London.”