It’s simply not awards season without a little bit of drama. If you put a bunch of actors and producers in a room, get them dressed up in their finest outfits, and award them for their accomplishments, something unexpected is bound to happen. Add onto this that stans are watching and ready to turn any perceived slight or snub into a viral moment, and events like the Academy Awards end up as likely to generate fan anger as they are celebration.
This year’s ceremony didn’t have anything quite as dramatic as Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage in 2022, but there were a few moments that caught viewers’ attention.
KPop Demon Hunters winners cut off
One moment that managed to ruffle some feathers was when the recipients of Best Original Song got cut off during their acceptance speech. KPop Demon Hunters took the award for “Golden,” and after singer and songwriter Ejae passed the mic over to co-writer Yu Han Lee, he was abruptly played off.
@itsthespotlight Viewers watching from home were shocked that the songwriters of Golden were cut-off during their acceptance speech for Best Original Song. ‘Alright f*** the Oscars for cutting off Best Original Song for Golden KPop Demon Hunters. Absolute disrespect and disgraceful to the creatives behind the biggest song of the year,’ one user wrote on X. Ejae, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seo and Teddy Park won the Oscar for Best Original Song for Golden from KPop Demon Hunters. #kpopdemonhunter #song #oscars #shock
KPop Demon Hunters fans have called this disrespectful. The Oscars famously plays off award recipients who go over their allotted time, but the crew had only been on stage for about a minute before getting cut off, and other winners seemed to be granted more time to make comments and offer thank-yous..
In a post-show interview with Variety, Walt Disney Television’s Rob Mills said that event organizers will be assessing how it handles speeches in the future.
“One thing, as we post mortem for next year, will be to look at how we’re handling speeches,” Mills told Variety. “You win the Oscar, you know you go on stage, it could be one person, it could be five or six. Immediately you’ll see the sort of allotted time we have for them. Do we need to look at it and say, okay, designate one person to speak. Maybe you continue it backstage, and we have a feed on social or something like that. We look at everything and figure out what is the most elegant solution, because it is difficult, especially when you’re cutting somebody off and it’s their one moment. We talk about it at the award luncheon, that you have this designated time to speak, and it’s difficult. I don’t know what the most elegant solution is, but it’s obviously something we should look really, really long and hard at.”
The Timothée Chalamet of it all
If you’ve got a healthy relationship with your phone and aren’t always online, you might not be aware that Marty Supreme star Timothée Chalamet has been under scrutiny for comments he made about how “no one cares” about ballet and opera in a lengthy conversation with fellow actor Matthew McConaughey last month. His remarks were deemed flippant by supporters of the classical arts, while others felt like he was, perhaps ineloquently, trying to speak about entertainers going where the audience is. Oscars host Conan O’Brien made a reference to the controversy in his opening speech, joking that security was “extremely tight” this year because there were “concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet communities.” The camera panned over to Chalamet, who seemed unbothered as he had a big ol’ grin on his face.
The Oscars’ first tie in years
One of the more surprising developments of the night was that the Oscars awarded its first tie since 2013, with both The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva winning the award for best live-action short film thanks to an even split of votes from the jury. Actor Kumail Nanjiani presented the award and brought attention to how irregular it was by riffing on it and telling the audience to “calm down” and that they’d get through it together. After The Singer’s crew accepted their award, Nanjiani joked that it was “ironic” that the Short Film award was going to take twice as long as the others.
There have only been seven ties in all of Oscars history, with the last one being in 2013 when Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty split the vote for Best Sound Editing.
As always, there were perceived snubs
Any awards season gets people riled up, as everyone has their favorites. One Battle After Another took home the Best Picture award, much to the chagrin of folks who were pulling for Sinners to get the crown. Director Paul Thomas Anderson also won the Best Directing award over Ryan Coogler, and “Golden” winning Best Original Song over “I Lied to You” from Sinners left a bad taste in the mouths of those pulling for Coogler’s vampire flick to take home some of the night’s biggest honors, with the film having broken the record for most nominations in Oscar history with 16 total. That said, Sinners took home four awards, including Michael B. Jordan winning Best Actor for his dual role as brothers Smoke and Stack. Coogler, meanwhile, took Best Original Screenplay, with the film also winning Best Original Score and Best Cinematography. So even if Sinners didn’t win Best Picture, there’s still a lot for the film’s crew to celebrate.
For a full list of the award show’s winners and nominees, check out the Oscars’ website.
