Occasionally, however, world events have cast such a large shadow that they cannot be ignored. And while Hollywood maxim is that the show must go on, in some cases real-world concerns have interfered with the ceremony, forcing organizers to alter their schedule, including last year’s delay due to a global pandemic.
The war in Ukraine has dominated news cycles, prompting solidarity from members of the film and television industry ahead of the Oscars. Over the years, politics and Oscars have gone hand-in-hand, and war was frequently part of the backdrop, from World War II – when the actual statuettes were made of plaster due to metal shortages – to Vietnam, a turbulent period that has featured on the show on various occasions reached.
Still, three events stand out during television time: the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, the assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and the start of the Iraq War in 2003.
In the first two cases, the awards were briefly postponed and discussed in 2003. (The Oscars were postponed again due to flooding in 1938.)
A look back at each of these events and the impact they had on the ceremony.
1968: The Assassination of the King
The April 4th assassination of the civil rights icon came days before the ceremony, with several of those appearing or scheduled to appear – including Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong and Diahann Carroll – planning to attend the funeral on April 9th, the day of King to attend after the show. (Poitier starred in two of this year’s Best Picture nominees, “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”)
Unable to make it there in time, the academy postponed the April 8 ceremony to April 10 and canceled its Governors Ball. The organization’s then-president, Gregory Peck, began the program with a tribute to King.
1981: Reagan is assassinated
Actually, Reagan was supposed to open the ceremony with a clip recorded in the White House about the worldwide reach of the Oscars and films. Many of those who attended the awards ceremony were particularly shocked, as they knew Reagan from his days as an actor and as President of the Screen Actors Guild.
Producers considered and finally decided to push the awards show back a day (Johnny Carson was that year’s host), and veteran writer Buzz Kohan, who worked on the show, recalled 25 years later to the Hollywood Reporter: “Oddly enough it was Reagan himself who set the tone, saying to the doctors in the operating room, ‘Please tell me you are all Republicans.’ We figured if the man who was shot could make a joke about it, he gave us permission to do the same.”
“That old adage ‘The show must go on’ seemed relatively unimportant,” Carson said at the opening of the program, saying the president was in “excellent shape” and it was his “expressed desire” that the producers use his taped introduction. what they did.
“Movie is forever,” Reagan said, reiterating the show’s theme that year, adding with a laugh, “I was trapped in a movie myself forever.”
2003: The Iraq invasion
The US invaded Iraq days before the broadcast, fueling debate over whether the awards ceremony should be postponed. On the eve of the awards ceremony, Oscar producer Gil Cates told the Los Angeles Times, “Of the 11 shows I’ve produced, it’s the hardest I’ve ever done.”
The Times described the days leading up to the ceremony as “one of the strangest and most stressful weeks in Oscars history.” The show went on, but the red carpet was removed along with temporary grandstands to allow fans to watch the stars arrive.
Additional controversy arose during the show when Michael Moore accepted his Best Documentary Oscar for Bowling for Columbine. Moore denounced the war – calling President George W. Bush “a fictional president” and saying, “Shame on you, Mr. Bush,” prompting boos from the crowd and leading to the filmmaker being pushed off the stage.
Fifteen years later, while receiving a lifetime achievement award at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, Moore took the opportunity to end his speech, which ended by urging people to “pick up a camera and go against the force to fight, to be heard and to stop this senseless war.”