Telecast Discussion

[OscarGuy]

Thanks, Flipp. I'm glad my memories of that situation aren't entirely faulty.

[flipp525]

I would not. The more I think about Uri's Macbeth reference, the more it seems to make sense.

Good for you. Their “character” has been revealed plenty over the decades. Spoiler-alert: They’re both self-obsessed assholes as well as being Scientology-adjacent.

Also, Jada was a big part of promoting #OscarsSoWhite even if she didn’t come up with the actual hashtag.

[OscarGuy]

I would not. The more I think about Uri's Macbeth reference, the more it seems to make sense.

[Big Magilla]

Here's the latest regarding a zoom call made by Will Smith to David Rubin and Dawn Hudson on 3/29 that they failed to disclose to the 50-board governors' committee when they met on 3/30. It's not pretty:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/rev ... 52402.html

[Okri]

I did not know this. I haven't seen "Summer of Soul" or any other awards show [this season], though.

"I was ecstatic that I was the 3RD South Asian to win that night - after Riz and Aneil Karia won earlier in the night for The Long Goodbye. 3 South Asians winning on the same night - that’s never happened before! And it’s meaningful! It’s history!"

I'm tempted to tweet to him that it happened in 2008, when musicians Gulzar and A.R. Rahman, and sound mixer Resul Pookutty won for their work on Slumdog Millionaire.

Good catch.

[Sabin]

OscarGuy wrote
I apologize. I appear to be wrong about the OscarsSoWhite issue. The most vocal and leading voice I saw was Jada, but apparently it was someone else altogether. Maybe it was amplified and Jada was just taking advantage of it to say Will is an example of someone being specifically dissed by the lack of diversity, which is still a pretty skeezy thing to do, but it wasn't she who started the movement.

Would you like to revise any of your statements about their character as a whole?

[jack]

Maybe it would be better if the the Academy broke away from ABC and made the show pay-per-view on Oscars.org. In addition to accepting credit and debit cards, they could sell gift cards that people could by with cash in stores, or even from vending machines. These gift-card sales could be used to promote the telecast. Then, after the live telecast, they could sell the video of the show.

I love that idea. And better still, buy back previous shows and offer them on a streaming platform.

[Greg]

Maybe it would be better if the the Academy broke away from ABC and made the show pay-per-view on Oscars.org. In addition to accepting credit and debit cards, they could sell gift cards that people could by with cash in stores, or even from vending machines. These gift-card sales could be used to promote the telecast. Then, after the live telecast, they could sell the video of the show.

[OscarGuy]

I apologize. I appear to be wrong about the OscarsSoWhite issue. The most vocal and leading voice I saw was Jada, but apparently it was someone else altogether. Maybe it was amplified and Jada was just taking advantage of it to say Will is an example of someone being specifically dissed by the lack of diversity, which is still a pretty skeezy thing to do, but it wasn't she who started the movement.

[Sonic Youth]

Fixed. Sorry about that.

[Sabin]

I didn't write that.

[Sonic Youth]

I think the Academy was very careful about the wording of their statement. They wouldn't have said that Smith was asked to leave and refused if it weren't true. Packer has said that what happened was wrong on so many levels that I suspect he did ask Smith to leave but backed down when he allegedly said, "try me". What they didn't say was what they did when he refused, which was obviously to leave him be. Allegedly that decision was made by Dawn Hudson who wanted him gone but didn't like the optics of his being forced to leave.

It may not have been the optics of his being forced to leave so much as what would happen if he grew more belligerent. It's live television. They only have a couple of minutes in between segments to diffuse the situation, and if he wouldn't leave, then they needed to decide - quickly - whether to risk further on-air disruptions or let the matter go and deal with it after the broadcast. I don't envy them this dilemma, and I can't say I blame them for the choice they made.

[Mister Tee]

As for the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase: Yes, I was a bit young for that. I certainly knew about it but again it wasn’t really something I watched develop live. When I learned about it… I don’t know, it was a car on the freeway.

I didn’t see the Challenger explode. I didn’t see Budd Dwyer. I’ll keep searching my memory but I’m willing to stand by my assertion than this is the craziest thing tbh I’ve seen on television but I’ll add the word “live.”

I know this is small potatoes next to the larger issues raised by this event (and how people are responding to it), but:

1) I was specifically responding to the "craziest" part of your sentence. Obviously the JFK assassination and 9/11 were more jolting events, but they were moments in history -- the sort of thing that goes into chronicles of the era, the way Pearl Harbor or the Battle of Waterloo did. (And, as far as "live", a whole lot of people saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald live.) The O.J. thing was a tabloid story on steroids: something so bizarre, it would have taken a screenwriter on mushrooms to dream it up. Something you had to keep shaking your head to assure yourself it was really happening.

2) Even as I (along with most of America) was watching the Bronco pursuit, I remember thinking, This is wild: I'm watching a car driving 40 miles an hour, and I can't take my eyes off it. It struck me that what distinguished it from a Hollywood movie was, the level of the chase wasn't the story; it was the stakes behind it. We were watching a guy who, 72 hours earlier, was in everyone's head as a beloved celebrity; now, he was almost surely a double-murderer, and we were watching to see if he'd kill himself as the entire world watched. Yes: that was what everyone thought might happen (even if few said it out loud). And yes, everyone was watching: the NBA Finals were running that night, but they had the Bronco picture-in-picture throughout.

The mixture of historic triviality, utter improbability, and level of attention is what I think these two events share.

[Sabin]

mlrg wrote
The Academy is an organization with governance rules and standards. Members are invited to enter the organization. If they accept, it is implied that they accept the rules this organization is governed by. If they break the rules, the Academy should have the ability to expell. That's what they did with Harvey Weinstein

Obviously, nobody is comparing Will Smith to Harvey Weinstein. I'll just say I personally don't believe his conduct is worthy of lifetime expulsion.

[Big Magilla]

This story just gets weirder and weirder.

https://www.billboard.com/culture/tv-fi ... 235052921/

“Packer said that he and the production ‘officially’ wanted Smith to stay for the remainder of the show,” one of the eyewitnesses reportedly told the magazine. “Another source close to Packer denied that the producer urged Smith to remain.” Neither Packer nor the Academy responded to Variety‘s request for comment.

I think the Academy was very careful about the wording of their statement. They wouldn't have said that Smith was asked to leave and refused if it weren't true. Packer has said that what happened was wrong on so many levels that I suspect he did ask Smith to leave but backed down when he allegedly said, "try me". What they didn't say was what they did when he refused, which was obviously to leave him be. Allegedly that decision was made by Dawn Hudson who wanted him gone but didn't like the optics of his being forced to leave.