A list of controversies following the academy awards
The Oscars have now come and gone, and has left a trail of controversies in its wake. Many of the films that won met their success with the unhappiness of the viewers. People obviously did not agree with the winning productions. There were disagreements leading up to the night to long after. Here is a list of everything that went down.
Kevin Hart
One of the more well known problems the show had started a few weeks before the event actually happened. Kevin Hart was asked to host the oscars which he stated was on his bucket list, but shortly after he dropped the gig. Someone pulled up a homophobic tweets Hart had posted way back between 2009 and 2011. Hart had addressed his offensive comments many times through the years, and got fed up with the fact he had to once again explain himself one more time. He backed out from hosting and refused multiple attempts from other celebrities to come back as well.
The Green Book
The Oscar winner for best picture had a whole list of problems that surrounded it. A 1998 interview with the director Peter Farrelly was unearthed, describing how he would “trick people into looking at his genitalia.” Later, anti-Muslim tweets from 2015 posted by the co-writer of the film, Nick Vallelonga, resurfaced after the film started getting more attention. Vallelonga issued an apology to the Muslim community, and everyone associated with The Green Book. Viggo Mortensen, who earned a Best Actor nomination for the film also got caught in heat after saying the “n word” during promotions for the film. After apologizing profusely immediately after, his costar, Mahershala Ali, accepted his apology after acknowledging how inappropriate his comments were.
Bohemian Rhapsody
This rock biopic about the life of Freddie Mercury had an amazing awards-season run. The movie won itself a number of awards, especially for lead Rami Malek, who portrayed the Queen frontman Freddie Mercury himself. The main controversies surrounding this film was firing the director, Bryan Singer, only a few weeks before production was finished shooting. His removal from the film followed serious sexual misconduct allegations outlined in The Atlantic. The story was focused on the four men who have the accusations, which two said were underaged at the time their alleged incidences occurred.
The Commercial Breaks
In a move to shorten the show broadcast, the Academy announced it would be presenting the winners of the awards for Cinematography, Editing, Live-Action Short, and Makeup and Hairstyling during the commercial breaks. Following the decision, many industry leaders took issue with it and protested. Director Alfonso Cuaron took to Twitter to protest that no film has ever existed without all of the listed categories not getting the recognition they deserved. The Academy did end up changing its decision on the end after the backlash, and announced they would be televising all Academy Awards without edits.
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