The Great Oscar Mix Up

The Oscars, a yearly celebration of the best of the best in movies and the actors and actresses that are portrayed in them. Usually, the awards go smoothly, with the presenters reading the nominees, then presenting the award to the winner, followed by a typically powerful speech by the winner. But this year, something unusual occurred.

The night was going well and was nearing a close when it became time to award Best Picture. This award goes to the best regular length of the year, as decided by a group simply known as ‘The Academy”. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, two well-known stars in the movie world, presented this award. At first it all seemed to be going smoothly, but then Beatty seemed to hesitate as he looked around confused before Faye took the card from him and announced the supposed winner: La La Land. The La La Land cast and crew came up and began to give speeches despite the confusion. After a few minutes, it became clear that something was not right.

All of the sudden, La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz announced that there had been a mistake, and La La Land was not the real winner, Moonlight was. The crowd began to murmur as he continued to state that there had been a mistake, and this was not a joke. He held up the card and showed television audiences all over the world that Moonlight truly had won Best Picture. The La La Land cast and crew were wonderfully gracious as the Moonlight cast and crew took their place on stage and began their acceptance speeches.

But what exactly happened? What caused the mix-up? It was in large part due to the coloring of the envelopes. Traditionally, the award envelopes were gold with red lettering, which made it easier to differentiate awards from each other. However, this year, the envelopes were changed to red with gold lettering which made it more difficult to see which award was which. Therefore, Beatty and Dunaway were accidentally handed the envelope for Best Actress (which had already been awarded, but there are two copies of each envelope so there was a leftover). When they read Emma Stone’s name, they believed that La La Land had won. This is why they announced them as the winners. Despite the mix-up, both groups were gracious in their actions after the mix-up, showing the true power of compassion and graciousness amongst Hollywood’s greatest stars.

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