For the most part, the Oscar Ceremony was the usual orgy of self-regard, bloviating, and overlong musical numbers, heavily leavened with Trump hatred, But then, at the very end, came a blunder to enormous in its scope that it will be celebrated for the next hundred years. Presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced that “La La Land,” a fluffy musical about a jazz musician and a would-be actress had won the Oscar for Best Picture. As the producers of the movie were thanking one and all, the announcement came that, no, full stop, never mind, that actual best picture was “Moonlight,” a little-seen, depressing film about a young African American growing up on the mean streets of Miami.
The real best picture for 2016, “Hidden Figures,” was snubbed and shut out.
The tortured explanation for the mother of all snafus was that Beatty and Dunaway were given the wrong card, the one that had announced Emma Stone, who plays the before mentioned would-be actress in “La La Land,” as best actress in a leading role. Beatty and Dunaway, who are getting on decades after they appeared in “Bonnie and Clyde” together, did not catch the mistake. So embarrassment and chaos reigned for the last few minutes of the Oscars.
The underlining lesson here is that Hollywood should stop offering advice on politics and public policy from the stage. If the entertainment industry cannot stage an awards ceremony without defecating on itself, it should not be so free with sanctimonious pontifications on immigration and diversity.
It should also make more pleasing movies, and TV shows that people want to see and honor them appropriately.
Upon that subject, the fact that “Hidden Figures,” an inspiring story about how the opportunities offered by the early space program gave three African American women the ability to overcome prejudice through individual achievement lost out to “Moonlight” is a mystery.
To be sure two other Oscar-worthy films, “Arrival,” was too cerebral and “Hacksaw Ridge” was directed by Mel Gibson. But either movie would have been more understandable that both the one that won and the one that was initially announced as winning. For shame, and with the real life Katherine Johnson present too. Hollywood cannot lecture about virtue anymore.
