Oscar Snafu: TV's Latest Historic Moment

There is no greater harbinger for this age than the scene that played out Sunday night By no real fault of their own oldschool screen legends Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty incorrectly presented the Oscar to oldschool sentimental movie musical La La Land only for the award to be redistributed to actual winner Moonlightamp160amp160a gritty coming of age tale featuring a largely AfricanAmerican castFor what it39s worth I had been pulling for La La Land Some critics and most of my friends cited director Damien Chazelle39s colorful ode to Old Hollywood as weak and lacking in substance during an emotionally fraught year amp160Butamp160I would argue that there was a deeper message behind La La Land and that we ought to celebrate music and imagination during these trying times True Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone cannot sing but I think that39s partially the point they play average characters aiming for the extraordinary What happens when our dreams outweigh our talentAlso La La Land did not feature the traditional happy Hollywood ending that a lesser movie might haveBut the Hollywood ending I39m really here to talk about is the one that took place at the Oscars when Beatty and Dunaway on hand to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their classic Bonnie ampamp Clyde were given the incorrect envelope containing the winner of the Best Actress award which Emma Stone of La La Land had indeed already wonWas an epic fail for PricewaterhouseCoopers the accounting firm and arbiter of the envelopes a major win for television amp160First there was a confusedlooking Beatty who in a seemingly gentlemanly yet underhanded moveamp160passed off the task of announcing the winner to his partnerincrime Dunaway who gloriously and without hesitationamp160proclaimed La La Land the Best Picture winnerTwoandahalf acceptance speeches later one La La Land producer took the microphone and said quotThere has been a mistakequot and invitedamp160the team behind Moonlight to come onstageNow the viewers at the Oscar party I attended had faded by this point in the show but came alive at thas moment Who was this man and why was he pulling a Kanye West quotImma let you finish La La Land but Moonlight was the Best Picture of the Yearquotamp160Back comes Beatty to explain The Case of the Incorrect Envelope and clear up some but not all of the confusion amp160amp160And that is the story of how Moonlight a lyrical film about the black homosexual son of a drug addict mother won Best Picture A win that was eclipsed by the rocky turn of events that got it thereLive television still matters as all of the breathtaking moments noted at the top from the past nine months make clear Ratings aside the cultural and historical significance of these events cannot be taken lightly amp160Those three to four minutes of confusion and surprise that took place onstage at the end of the Oscars telecast ought to be remembered as one of the most artful metaphorical moments of 2017 so far and certainly the most exciting thing to happen at the Oscars since the 1974 streakerAgainst the backdrop of a deeply divided country the Oscars rejected quotthe oldquot in favor of quotthe newquot in a most confounding way Could the envelope confusion with Beatty and Dunaway symbolize an old guard not quite ready to let go When the La La Land producers magnanimously cleared the stage and invited their friends from Moonlight to accept the award did that set forth a path towards peaceful togetherness Finally is our preoccupation with the envelope screwup indicative of the skepticism and cynicism sweeping the nationReturning to the importance of television in all this can we take a moment to remember that Faye Dunaway won her single Oscar for 197639s Network a film that takes to task the utter outrageousness of live television amp160It39s a pretty perfect irony Not even Paddy Chayefsky could write this stuffClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggersamp160

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Oscar Snafu: TV's Latest Historic Moment

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Charlotte Lipman

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Oscar Snafu: TV's Latest Historic Moment

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