awardalysis

[kalimac]

As a former awards administrator for two literary societies, I continue to be fascinated by the Oscars snafu this year. There are two outstanding questions in my mind: 1) how and why was Warren Beatty handed the wrong envelope?; 2) why did it take so long for the PwC awards administrators, who have memorized all the winners precisely to prevent

Comments

[anonymous]

How was Beatty handed the wrong envelope? Apparently a Huffington Post story a few days before the ceremony hinted as to how it could happen: one PWC representative is positioned stage right and the other is stage left, and both of them have a full set of all 24 award envelopes. And then Beatty and Dunaway apparently entered from the opposite side of the previous presenter, Leonardo DiCaprio, who had announced the Best Actress. But I haven't read what caused the PWC staffer on their side to hand them the wrong card, although I did just hear one report that, because Dunaway was having trouble navigating stairs, their entrance was changed late from one side to the other.

Watching the show Sunday evening, shortly before that Best Picture presenters were announced (or maybe it was just prior to the previous award?), I saw on the broadcast the silhouette of a person running stage right behind the set. At the time, I thought that was a surprising little mistake. When the big mix-up happened, I wondered if there was any connection between the two events.

I am in complete agreement with you that the PWC and the Oscar production crew were ridiculously slow to respond. The stage managers in the theater where I work, I hope, would resolve a problem like this much more swiftly. It's likely the Oscar crew has never practiced for what to do if this mistake should happen, or not for many years (having forgotten the 1964 incident you mention in the other post).

Here's a link to a photo where the award name on the outside of the envelope Beatty held is barely visible, though as you say, he had no reason to check it:

http://thecount.com/2017/02/27/oscars-scandal-la-la-land-moonlight-conspiracy-theories/envelopegate-warren-beatty/

-MTD/neb

[kalimac]

That there were two sets of envelopes explains Emma Stone's objection that she still had her own card, so Warren Beatty couldn't have had it. He had the other one.

But it doesn't explain why he was given the wrong one. The answer to that seems to lie in a combination of poor labeling of the outside of the envelope, and of the PwC guy being distracted because he was too busy tweeting backstage photos. If the latter was responsible, then he should be sentenced to four years of scrubbing toilets, or possibly working in Trump's Treasury Department.