Oscars: Global Media Reacts To Best Picture Blunder
International media outlets were awash with the Best Picture Oscar snafu throughout the day on Monday as the rest of the world woke up to what was possibly the most surreal moment in Academy Award history.
UK paper The Guardian led its Culture page with the headline “Oscars 2017 Moonlight Wins Best Picture … Two Minutes After La La Land” and subhead “Cockup casts shadow over victory for Barry Jenkins’ acclaimed drama as movie musical is mistakenly named winner by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.” Columnist Steve Rose urged readers not to let the Oscars gaffe overshadow Moonlight’s “monumental” achievement. “It was a historic win in terms of films about LGBT subjects,” he said, adding that it also was historic in that it’s the first African-American Best Picture winner “without being about civil rights or race relations.”
Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph led with the story on its front page with “Oscars fiasco PWC and Academy executives in crisis meetings over Best Picture blunder after boast about ‘always’ doing a good job.”
By midday Monday, The Daily Mail still had the event as its lead story on the site saying “How We Faked Up” and “’Don’t blame Warren – it was us’: Oscars vote counters apologise as a duplicate envelope is blamed for epic blunder which made Beatty and Dunaway WRONGLY name La La Land as Best Picture.”
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Piers Morgan led his column in the tabloid paper with “The night I La-La-Laughed until I cried as Hollywood proved it wouldn’t recognize The Truth if it was hand-delivered in a red envelope.” Morgan, a huge fan of Donald Trump, said The New York Times’ TV ad during the ceremony stating “The truth is now more important than ever” was an ironic precursor to events that were about to unfold. Before going on a long rant bashing the NYT (which he called America’s “most self-satisifed, snobbish and unrelentingly Trump-bashing media entity”), Morgan said, “Let’s be honest, the greatest Oscars fiasco in history couldn’t have happened to a bunch of smugger, more deserving people.”
Rupert Murdoch-owned paper The London Times said: “Oscars chaos after false start for La La Land,” while his tabloid The Sun stayed away from the blunder, instead focusing on Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon’s ongoing feud.
French radio and television news networks led with the Oscars gaffe story throughout the morning. LCI, the news network owned by TF1 called it a “couac historique,” which essentially translates to a “historic false note.”
Daily Libération said, “Final twist at the Oscars: Moonlight wins Best Film Oscar versus La La Land.” Le Monde chose to tell the story without building up the headline, saying simply, “Moonlight Best Film, Six Statues for La La Land.”
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Early in the day, Italy’s Corriere Della Sera led with “Gaffe at the Oscars,” while German outlet Der Spiegel said, “The Oscar is moving.”
China Daily ran a bigger story about Damien Chazelle becoming the youngest-ever person to win the Best Director Oscar. La La Land recently opened in China and has danced its way to $31M, which is impressive for a musical in that market. Chazelle was visiting the Middle Kingdom to promote the film on the day Oscar nominations were announced.
The state-backed People’s Daily ran with a story from UK’s Daily Mail with the headline, “Fake Oscar Fiasco: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway WRONGLY name La La Land best picture as directors forced to stop their speech and hand statue BACK to rightful winner Moonlight in extraordinary scenes.”
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