The Oscar (奧斯卡金像獎)
E. Yun
12-29-2006
Introduction
“And the winner is……….” Every year in February or March, a star-studded elaborate extravaganza takes place in Los Angeles to give awards to the great films and performances of the past year. It is the Academic Awards, commonly known as the “Oscar” granted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (known commonly as the Academy.)Ostensibly a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures but in reality an anti-labor studio-controlled company union to protect the studio bosses’ muscle against rebellious technicians and to keep actors and actress unionization at bay!
History of the Oscar
The Academy was founded on May 11, 1927 in California; it currently has a membership of about 6,000 professionals (from technicians to directors) from the movie industry. Members have the right to vote for the Oscar awards.
The awards were first given at a banquet at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood on May 16, 1929. For the next 12 years winner results were given to newspapers so that they would be ready for publication in the late edition at the Oscar night. In 1940, there was an early leak by the LA times so the public knew about the results before the ceremony. As a result the now famous confidential envelope system was introduced in 1941, adding a touch of suspense to the event!
After the US entered WWII in 1941, the Academy’s board of directors decided that the Oscar statuettes would be made of plastic in order to save the metal for the war effort; they were to be traded in for golden statuettes after the war.
The practice of presenting the awards in a banquet was discontinued in 1943 due to the war and the presentation ceremonies have since been held in theaters. In 1944 the ceremony was broadcasted by network radio for the first time.
In 1953 the Oscar was first televised. In 1966 the televised ceremony went color. “Just think,” said Bob Hope “you can actually see the losers turn green.”
After holding the ceremony at around half a dozen of theaters over the decades, the Oscar finally found in 2002 its new venue, the Kodak Theater in Hollywood!
Tallying the votes
Price Waterhouse & Cooper (PWC - a famous accountant firm) has been the tabulator and certifier of votes for the Academy Awards since 1934.
When the ballots sent to Academy members are returned to the Academy’s offices in LA, they are transferred to PWC in LA downtown where a team of six spends three days to tally the result. PWC staffs are sworn not to discuss the results of the counting even among themselves in a way similar to jurors doing jury deliberations.
On the day of the Oscar’s annual event, two PWC corporate accountants are chained each with an identical briefcase containing an identical set of 24 envelopes with the names of this year’s Academy Award winners to be delivery to the theatre where the ceremony is held and be announced later in a televised ceremony.
To ensure at least one of the briefcases arrives safely at the theater, the two executives travel in different limousines and by separate routes from their PWC offices in LA downtown to the destination (the Kodak Theater since 2002.)
The Oscar statuettes
The Oscar statuettes are manufactured by R.S. Owens and Company in Chicago. They are made from the alloy britannium which is an alloy of tin, copper, and antimony. The statuettes are plated with four metals – copper, nickel, silver, and 24K gold. A statuette stands 13.5 inches and weights 8.5 pounds.
The statuette portrays a knight holding a sword standing on a reel of film. The film reel features five spokes which represent the five original branches of the Academy –producers, directors, actors,writers and technicians.
The gold-plated statuettes as well as the Academy Awards are nicknamed as “Oscars”; the Academy officially started using that name in 1939. It is believed the name was derived from the comments on the statuette by an Academy employee Margaret Herrick who said: “It looks just like my uncle Oscar!”
Oscar heist
One of the most bizarre episodes in the history of Oscar took place in 2000 when a shipment of 55 statuettes was missing en route to Los Angeles. Roadway Express, the carrier in charge of shipping the Oscars, offered a $50,000 award for the missing statuettes. A 61-year-old dumpster diver (junk dealer) Willie Fulgear soon found 52 of theOscars next to a trash dumpster in LA. He was awarded the money and received an invitation to attend the Oscar ceremony.
Two delivery workers of Roadway Express were arrested and they confessed to stealing the Oscars from a loading dock in LA. In a bizarre twist of plot, one of the two workers was Willie Fulgear’s half-brother! Police found Fulgear had nothing to do with the crime so he received the award money all the same. True life is sometimes stranger than fiction!
Opinion
The Oscar’s dominating agenda is publicity, not merit! Behind the smokescreen of glamour and glitz and supposed artistic achievement, the Oscar is all about money. An award can bring an otherwise unknown actor/actress to fame overnight! Even a mere nomination in any category can boost a hit movie’s box office and in the past few decades VHS tape and DVD rentals and sales as well.