The most famous controversies in the history of the Oscars – News – Culture

In a few days, on March 12, the 95th Oscar edition will be held in Los Angeles. It will be a night of awards, red carpet and maybe also some controversy. And it is that the big party in Hollywood usually brings surprises, and not only because of the questionable ones that the Academy elections often turn out to be. In its almost hundred years of history, the Oscars have left us with a good number of embarrassing moments and embarrassing scandals that, very often, have ended up overshadowing the awards themselves. Because, make no mistake, a lot of people won’t remember that CODA won the Best Picture Oscar last year, but who could forget Will Smith’s slap to Chris Rock?

1936 – The first scared

Screenwriter Dudley Nichols was the first (though certainly not the last) to turn down an Oscar. In 1936, John Ford’s film The informer It received four Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay, an award that its author declined in solidarity with his fellow screenwriters, who were on strike at the time. Seven years later, Hollywood saw fit to grant him a new award for the documentary the battle of midwayand this time he did accept it.

1940 – An award tinged with racism

In 1940, Hattie McDaniel made history by becoming the first black person to win an Oscar. She achieved it in the supporting actress category for her role as Mammy in gone With the Wind. That does not mean that he had to experience an unfortunate demonstration of racism. He wasn’t even allowed to sit next to his white classmates at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, the venue of the gala. She and her companion had to sit at a different table against a wall at the far end of the room. At that time, it should be remembered, the segregation laws that separated whites and blacks were still in force in the United States.

1973 – The scared of Marlon Brando

The 45th edition of the awards recognized Marlon Brando for his performance in The Godfather, but the actor decided not to show up to collect the award. Instead he sent Sacheen Littlefeather, a Native American actress and activist who took the stage to reject him and criticize the stereotypical view of indigenous people in movies. Littlefeather passed away late last yearjust a few weeks after the Oscar organization paid him a tribute to recognize the value of the gesture.

1974 – The naked man

In 1974, photographer and artist Robert Opel stormed onto the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion stage by surprise and stark naked while poor David Niven was trying to introduce Elizabeth Taylor. Opel crossed the stage without clothes and making the peace symbol with his left hand, apparently, to claim the rights of homosexuals. “It’s fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that this man has gotten in his life has been showing his little things,” Niven said before continuing with the gala. Robert Opel died five years after his performance at the Oscars during an attempted robbery at his San Francisco studio.

1975 – Warren Beatty vs Frank Sinatra

The Vietnam War just ended, and tempers in the United States were still a bit heated when Hearts and minds, a documentary very critical of the conflict, won the Oscar. The producer, Bert Schneider, took advantage of his speech to read a statement of thanks sent by the Vietnamese government, something that did not go down exactly well with Fran Sinatra or Bob Hope, presenters of the gala, who upon returning to the stage remarked that the Oscars they were not “a place for political proclamations”. What they didn’t expect is that shortly afterward, Schneider’s friend Warren Beatty would take the stage to present an award and snap at Sinatra: “Thank you very much, Frank, you geeky Republican.”

1989 – Worst performance (and worst ceremony?) in history

The one from 1989 is considered one of the worst Oscar galas. The presenters, Rob Lowe and Chavy Chase, were widely criticized, but the most embarrassing moment of the night was a performance by an actress who covered a Creedence Clearwater Revival song dressed as Snow White. Disney later sued the Academy, alleging that the company had not been made aware of the musical number. The controversy cost the producer of the ceremony his position.

1993 – Veto Speeches

Industry professionals often decide to take advantage of their acceptance speeches to focus on a cause or make political demands, but 93 was too much for the gala organizers. Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Richard Gere decided to stop by and give out an award to criticize the treatment of Haitian immigrants and the oppression of Tibet, respectively. As punishment, her participation in future ceremonies was prohibited, a veto that did not help much, least of all in the case of Sarandon, who three years later won her first Oscar for her performance in Death penalty.

1999 – The disputed award to Elia Kazan

The honorary Oscar received by the film director as A Streetcar Named Desire o east of eden It has been one of the most divisive in Hollywood. Half of the gala attendees rose to applaud the filmmaker, while the other half remained seated and silent (there was even some booing). The reason is that in the 1950s, Kazan ratted out a lot of comrades during McCarthy’s anti-communist witch hunt.

2003 – The controversial award to Polanski

The pianist He received in 2003 three of the seven Oscars to which he was eligible, including the one for best director for Roman Polanski. The director, who has not set foot in the United States since he was accused of raping a minor in the late 1970s, did not come to pick him up. The controversy was, in any case, served. This was one of the cases that served to open the debate on whether it is possible to value an artist or his work regardless of what he has done in his private life.

2003 – Adrien Brody’s stolen kiss

The protagonist of the aforementioned Polanski film, Adrien Brody, did take the stage of the Kodak Theater to collect his Oscar for best actor, a victory that the interpreter decided to celebrate by planting a long kiss on Halle Berry’s mouth. Time after, the actress confessed that it had not been planned or of course consensual, but that she had decided to go along with Brody.

2016 – #OscarSoWhite

After the 2016 awards nominations were announced, many noted that all of the featured actors and actresses were white. Will Smith, Spike Lee and others promoted a boycott of the ceremony through the networks with the hashtag #OscarSoWhite. We do not know if to correct the error or by chance, Chris Rock served as host of the gala that year and took the opportunity to release a lot of taunts about his lack of diversity. “We should call it the White People Choice Awards” or “this year, in the ‘in memoriam’, there will only be black people who were shot by the police while going to the movies,” were some of the darts he threw during his opening monologue.

2017 – The envelope mess of ‘La La Land’ and ‘Moonlight’

One of the most surreal moments ever experienced at an Oscar ceremony. Warren Beatty and Faith Dunaway were on stage to present the award for best picture. Beatty opened the envelope and, puzzled, showed it to Dunaway, who proceeded to award the winner to Dunaway. La La Land. Naturally, the entire film team went up to collect the award. They were in the middle of acceptance speeches when a bunch of people stormed the stage to announce that there had been a mistake and that the movie Moonlight she was the real winner. The origin of the confusion was in the envelopes. Apparently the employeesPricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm that for decades has been in charge of counting and safeguarding the Oscar votes, mistakenly delivered the best actress Oscar envelope to the presenters for Emma Stone.

2022 – The Will Smith Slap

Many questioned at first if everything was really a setup, but Will Smith’s smack to Chris Rock was most real. The presenter of the gala had the idea of ​​making a joke in bad taste about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s alopecia and her husband couldn’t think of anything better than going on stage and slapping her tremendously. In short, all wrong.