Monday, February 25, 2013
Oscars controversy: Quvenzhané Wallis vs. The Onion, The World vs. Seth MacFarlane and more …
Posted by Joe Bardi on Mon, Feb 25, 2013 at 12:18 PM
Everyone loves talking about The Oscars — the fashion, the host, maybe even the awards — but what do you do when the show is a dud? Focus on the controversy!
As such, one of the main things animating today's post-show conversation is a Tweet.
The Onion is in hot water over a comment made on Twitter involving Best Actress nominee Quvenzhané Wallis. The 9-year-old star of Beasts of the Southern Wild found herself the subject of an admittedly off-color joke during The Onion's online running commentary:
"Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhane Wallis is kind of a cunt right?"
Over the top? Yes. Inappropriate? You bet. Are people overreacting, especially online? Definitely! Though they have not released an official response, The Onion seems to be acknowledging that it crossed the line, as the offending tweet has been deleted. (UPDATE: The Onion has apologized.)
Reviews of Seth MacFarlane's performance as Oscar host include Gawker's video compilation of what it called "MacFarlane’s Predictable Sexist, Homophobic, and Racist Oscar Jokes," while Fox News went with the headline "Critics: Some of Seth MacFarlane's Oscar jokes 'inappropriate,' 'sexist'". When you've got Gawker and Fox News calling you out, you have accomplished something.
The best takedown of MacFarlane and company I've seen is by Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales, who wrote:
Listen — a billion people are throwing up. That's a rough estimate of course, but every year somebody at the Oscars says a billion people on the planet are watching the program; however many watched this year's Oscar show, they may well have felt sickened by it. It was a stomach-churning, jaw-dropping debacle, incompetently hosted and witlessly produced.
Life of Pi wins Best Visual Effects, but did you know the artists who made it happen have been fired and are still owed money?
Conservatives were (of course) pissed about Michelle Obama's appearance during the Best Picture segment, while others found it odd or off-putting that a sitting First Lady presented the biggest award of the evening to a movie that could be considered pro-CIA propaganda.
Meanwhile, actual film fans are pissed about the awards themselves. The LA Times' critic wonders if Spielberg was robbed. Liberal Commentator Glenn Greenwald couldn't resist celebrating Zero Dark Thirty's very bad night.
And the winners were :
BEST PICTURE
Argo
BEST ACTOR
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
BEST ACTRESS
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
BEST DIRECTOR
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Chris Terrio, Argo
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Brave
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Searching for Sugar Man
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Inocente, Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
BEST FILM EDITING
Argo, William Goldenberg
BEST FOREIGN FILM
Amour, Austria — WINNER
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Les Misérables, Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Life of Pi, Mychael Danna
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Skyfall” from Skyfall, Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Lincoln, Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Paperman, John Kahrs
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Curfew, Shawn Christensen
BEST SOUND EDITING
Tie:
Skyfall, Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers
Zero Dark Thirty, Paul N.J. Ottosson
BEST SOUND MIXING
Les Misérables, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Life of Pi, Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott
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