Oooops! Oscars 2017 As Seen from the Pressroom — Jeanne Wolf (Exc;usive)
What???? What’s going on? How could this happen? What went wrong? WOW! Oh my God! The F word flying in the air.
In such a wild – lightning bolt of a moment minds explode with a jumble of reactions and parallel narratives. Nervous laughter, adrenaline driven shouts, everyone guessing at an explanation, asking each other for an urgent reality check.
Call outs of “Is this a first?” “What Oscar mistakes have there been over the years?”
Eyes turn to the TV screen as the craziness continues to play out on the air. How are these people going to handle this beyond-belief moment? Take a look!
A bizarre calamity – some froze and panicked, some did their job and rushed to make things right. Protocol and set plans for mistakes – out the window. Anger and bewilderment dominate.
The show goes off the air with a charged mix of joy and bafflement.
The buzz escalates. “What took so long to fix the error?” “Who caused this mess-up?” And typical of a room full of reporters, “Is someone going to make a statement?”
I wondered to myself. How would I have responded? Getting a dream of Best Picture snatched back in front of the world has got to be an emotional tsunami. I can only hope I’d be equal to Jordan Horowitz, “La La Land” producer. His grace and poise and out and out goodness superseded what had to be a thud of a let-down.
To Quote Stephanie Merry and Lindsay Bever from The Washington Post: “Amid the confusion, there was one person willing to take charge and explain, even though he had just given an acceptance speech for a career-defining award he did not actually win.
Horowitz marched up to the microphone to make an announcement “‘Moonlight’ won,” he declared.
“Guys, guys, I’m sorry. No. There’s a mistake,” Horowitz added. “‘Moonlight,’ you guys won best picture.”
“This is not a joke,” he continued.
“Come up here,” he commanded, motioning for the “Moonlight” team to come to the stage and collect the top Oscar that Horowitz briefly thought his film had just won.
While the people in the audience were gasping with surprise, Horowitz — as if to assure them this wasn’t fake news — held up the card just pulled from the correct award envelope.
“I’m going to be really thrilled to hand this to my friends from ‘Moonlight,’ ” he said.
Horowitz wasn’t just a gracious loser; he became the closest thing the Oscars can get to a folk hero.”
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