0:02

It’s the Oscars 2017.

It’s a privilege for us to present the final Award of the evening.

The star-studded audience is on the edge of their seats, Warren Beatty, and Faye Dunaway are about to announce the Academy Award for best picture of the year.

0:19

The film’s we honor tonight, inspired us touched our emotions gave us hope and joy and may even have changed our thinking.

And after the scripted cliches baby pops open.

A cherry red envelope and glances down at the white card inside.

0:37

He does a double take looking for something scattered.

Laughter comes from the crowd.

The Academy Award.

For best picture, baby.

0:55

Really seems to be Hamming, it up and and what looks like an act of generosity.

He shows, Dunaway the card, letting her announce the winner LOL and there you have it folks.

LOL.

And the Technicolor throwback to the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals has won the big prize.

1:16

The film’s Producers rushed to the stage all smiles.

But as they make their way through their thank yous, something starts to look off a man wearing a headset runs on stage and inspects the winning envelope.

Several other people emerge from offstage and huddle in the middle of the La La Land crowd.

1:36

Finally one of The film’s Producers steps back up to the mic.

No this there’s a mistake Moonlight.

You guys won best picture.

It was a mistake.

So big.

It left the jaws of Hollywood a-listers on the floor, but what really led to this flub and was the Moonlight LOL and mix up exactly what we want from the Oscars or proof that this institution is ironically past it.

2:09

From gimlet media.

This is not passed it a show about the stories.

We can’t quite leave behind every episode.

We take a moment from that very same week in history and tell you the story of how it shaped our world.

I’m Simone plannin on February 26th 2017.

2:28

Six years ago this week Moonlight won the Oscar for best picture but an envelope mishap nearly overshadowed the Indie movies.

Big moment.

It’s a story from are not so distant past, but it tells us pretty much everything we need to know about Hollywood and award season.

2:48

Because in that moment, race power and image, all collided exposing the cracks hiding behind the movie Magic.

So remember who you’re wearing, and don’t forget to thank your agent because we’re about to take you behind the scenes of Hollywood’s biggest night that’s after the break.

3:17

The award season Journey for the movie musical.

LOL, and kicked off the summer, before the Oscar ceremony, when it had its World premiere at the Venice, Film Festival, the film screened, and everybody seemed to really respond to it.

I remember there being Standing Ovation was very surreal.

3:33

This is La La Land producer, Jordan Horowitz.

He says, his time in Venice was exciting, but brief, I think I was there for 48 hours and then I flew from Venice.

To Telluride, which is not a trip.

I recommend to literally anyone.

3:51

Jordan was en route to the Telluride film festival in Colorado.

It was a lengthy trip for Jordan and the LOL and team, but an important stop for any movie, trying to build Oscar buzz, In many ways LOL and had Oscars written all over it writer director, Damien chazelle had made a splash with his previous movie Whiplash.

4:16

Now, he was back with a bigger budget and bigger names, LOL, and starred.

Emma Stone as a bright-eyed actress, and Ryan Gosling, as a jazz purest, both struggling to make it in Hollywood.

What do you mean you hate?

Yes, this means that when I listen to it, I don’t like it.

4:33

Yeah.

This is your blanket statement.

You don’t like it LOL and was full of intricately filmed song and dance numbers.

I was a tribute to Classic Movie musicals like singing in the rain and An American in Paris but it wasn’t the only film gaining steam at Telluride a smaller.

4:52

Quieter film was also getting people talking this one time.

I’ll run by those old.

Its old lady.

She stopped me.

Running around catching up all that light.

5:15

The Moonlight, like, boys in the blue.

Split into three sections director.

Barry jenkins’s, Moonlight told the story of Sharone a soft-spoken kid from Miami who struggles to embrace his queer identity as he gets older.

5:33

When he wasn’t promoting lala land, Jordan Horowitz took time out to see Moonlight at Telluride and got to know the film makers.

That was the first time I met Barry and all the actors and that was really the start of a journey of being with a lot of people for like a six-month period from that Festival all the way through to the Oscars, the film’s lived.

5:52

These parallel lives screening at festivals and in theaters winning rave reviews, but one film was emerging.

As the award season.

FrontRunner la-la land.

So of course, people that, okay, while and is the movie about the magic of Hollywood that kind of movie, pretty much always does.

6:12

Well, the Oscars that’s Michael Shulman staff writer at the New Yorker.

And author of the book.

Oscar Wars, remember though this was all happening in 2016 and as the political landscape shifted, so did the way people saw LOL and there was this dreamy romantic movie.

6:32

Once Trump won that just was not the vibe.

People were asking, you know, why is there this movie about a white Jazz guy?

You know, Superman’s Blaine’s Jazz to Emma Stone on their first date.

On the flip side, the election of Donald Trump, and the hateful rhetoric that came with.

6:50

It altered the perception of moonlight in a different direction.

Barry Jenkins told me, he went to a screening right after the election and he realized that the audience is relationship to the main Saoirse Ronan had changed where audiences.

Now felt they wanted to protect this young queer, black boy more.

7:11

So now that this was Trump’s America Despite the shifting landscape in the u.s. la-la-land did go on to dominate some of the award shows earlier, in the season, like the producers Guild Directors, Guild and the Golden Globes, but the big one was still up for grabs and I’m especially honored to help announce this year’s nominees for Best Picture on January 24th, 2017, just a few days.

7:41

After the inauguration of Donald Trump, the Academy Award nominations were announced hidden figures LOL and lion.

LOL and received 14 nominations tying, the record for most Oscar nominations of all time.

7:59

Moonlight was not too far behind with eight nominations, both received best picture nods a month.

Later Hollywood’s.

Biggest night finally arrived.

8:22

The late night comedian, kicked things off in typical fashion by poking fun.

At some of the year’s nominees for movies black people, save NASA and white people, save Jazz.

That’s what you call progress.

The black people saving NASA joke was a nod to Hidden figures, a film celebrating a group of black female mathematicians, and that white people saving Jazz movie was, of course, LOL and Kim.

8:54

All also joked that the 2016 election had put the Academy’s shortcomings on race and to perspective, I want to say thank you to President Trump.

I mean, remember, last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist.

Ha ha.

9:10

There are different degrees to racism.

Good, one man, Kimmel was referring to the outrage over the prior year, slate of acting nominees who were all white.

It had been the second year in a row that no people of color, were nominated in any of the acting categories.

9:29

Something that viewers on social media certainly, took notice of I saw it and it just felt like more of the same.

And so I just picked It up my phone and I tweeted Oscar so white.

They asked to touch my hair.

This is April rain in 2015.

9:46

She created the hashtag Oscars.

So white and 2016 was when it really took off director Spike, Lee even used the phrase in an Instagram post.

Announcing that he was boycotting that year ceremony.

He told his followers, quote, 40, white actors in two years and no flavor at all.

10:07

We can’t.

WTF.

Yeah, you tell him Spike Oscar so white became a Tipping Point but surprised the academy had always had a diversity problem.

It’s been over 90 years now but it was really a whole bunch of older white men who decided that they were going to get dressed up one night and Pat themselves on the back for the films that they created.

10:34

Back-patting wasn’t the only reason the Oscars were created over 90 years ago.

The awards were also part of an attempt at damage control.

It was the 1920s and Hollywood was riddled with scandals.

Here’s New Yorker, staff, writer, Michael, Shulman, again, Hollywood had a really bad reputation that conservative element in the country, felt that it was just a cesspool.

11:00

Like I’m a Sodom and Gomorrah that was, you know, dragging down the upstanding, you know, Christian Nation and would be a terrible influence in those early days.

The problems facing Hollywood stretched from a rape and murder trial involving a silent comedy.

Midi star to a famous director found murdered in his home with a bullet in his back.

11:21

I know, wild but sorry to my True Crime, girl.

He’s the details of those stories are for another time.

Studio heads were worried that this immoral reputation would trigger government Regulators coming in and messing with their business.

11:40

Their initial solution was to regulate themselves in 1922 a group of film Executives hired, an outsider named will Hays to oversee the content making it into Final Cuts of movies.

He would go on to create the Hays.

11:55

Code production guidelines that limited how filmmakers could show sex drugs and violence on screen.

Dean.

But Michael says, one of the biggest Studio heads in particular, was still worried about losing control to government regulation.

We be mayor, who was the all-powerful head of MGM wanted, you know, his fiefdom mayor, ran MGM.

12:20

The biggest studio in Hollywood at the time and wielded power over some of the most famous stars of the 20s and 30s actors like Greta, Garbo, Rudolph Valentino and Clark Gable.

In 1927, Mara was looking for a way to consolidate power and solve Hollywood’s PR problem.

12:41

So he got together with some industry friends, and they decided to found an organization that would represent the interests of Hollywood’s Power Players.

They called it.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences part of what the academy did was Rebrand the industry so that it was no longer a cesspool.

13:00

It was an academy, a very lofty idea.

Of this respectable art form.

And one way to prove that movies were an art form.

Give out Awards in their initial list of ideas, they had the awards of Merit and it took them about two years until they finally had their first award ceremony in 1929.

13:21

Here’s a newsreel staging of one of the earliest Academy Award ceremonies Louis.

Be mayor.

Himself announced the winner for best picture.

I want to present to you mr.

Khan lammle Lee whose company produced that marvelous production, All Quiet on the Western Front, which the academy has, okay.

13:43

It’s news.com backslash snore backslash don’t, these guys work in the entertainment industry.

Why am I not entertained dot HTML?

But in general, the Oscars were successful, they projected a positive image of Hollywood out to the world and film Executives could use the ceremony as a sign of the industry’s progress on certain issues like race.

14:10

The very first Oscar to a black person went to Hattie McDaniel for Gone With The Wind in 1939.

I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion.

Picture industry.

14:27

My heart is too full to tell you, just how I feel and may I say thank you and God bless.

How do you make Daniel won?

Best supporting actress for playing Mammy in Gone With the Wind and Not only.

Was she the first black person to win an Oscar?

14:44

She was the first black person to ever attend the ceremony as a guest.

Michael Schulman says that her win was intended to send a clear message.

This was in the midst of World War Two.

And part of why Hollywood took this moment to take this historic, step was because they wanted to project, American values of Tolerance abroad.

15:07

You know, as a kind of rejoinder to the Nazis, Michael says, major Oscar wins for black films and black actors have often come at moments when Hollywood wants to prove how Progressive it is.

15:23

These groundbreaking awards are all sort of Caught in the middle of something that is without taking away from the historic nature of them.

They’re also Optics because what what Hollywood does best is Optics, Hattie McDaniels.

Oscar win might have been good optics for the film industry, but it didn’t really go far beyond that.

15:44

That year, ceremony was held at a segregated venue.

McDaniel wasn’t even allowed to sit with her white co-stars, plus her career hardly benefited from the award.

He mostly played domestic workers for the rest of her life.

Black people who have one are often playing victims or subservient roles as April Rain points out.

16:10

The academy has a tendency to recognize black films and actors that fit into stereotypical categories.

Go all the way.

Back to Hattie McDaniel, playing an enslaved woman.

You know, if you think about Monique in Precious, Halle Berry in Monsters.

16:25

Ball.

These are all people who are in crisis and the Oscar goes to Halle Berry and monsters Halle Berry’s 2002.

When for Monster’s Ball was, no doubt historic.

She was the first woman of color to ever win the best actress award this moment so much bigger than me.

16:50

This moment is for Dorothy, Dandridge Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, it’s for the women that stand beside me Jada Pinkett and domestic and in an echo of Hattie McDaniel berries.

17:09

Win also failed to open many doors for her in Hollywood.

However, more than a decade later in 2017.

It looked like, Other doors might finally be opening for a different kind of Storytelling about black people.

17:26

The academy was in the process of doubling the number of people of color in its ranks after Oscars.

So white and that year, several films centered on very different black experiences were in contention, Moonlight hidden figures and Denzel Washington’s film based on the August Wilson.

17:45

Play fences had all been nominated for Best Picture.

April says moonlights Oscar buzz in particular, Felt So Exciting in part because it was so unlike the types of films that usually get attention from the academy, it was just so beautiful and tender and soft and gentle, but a golden trophy wasn’t necessarily a lock going into the Academy Awards in 2017.

18:13

You know, everybody in the industry knows, nothing is a guarantee but the LOL and people were pretty confident.

Still, they never could have predicted, what would take place on that big night?

So what really happened in the Moonlight and La La Land debacle?

18:31

That’s after the break.

18:46

Welcome back my oscar Darlings before the break.

We looked into the 2017 Awards campaign and heard about just how white the Oscars have always been the 2017.

Academy award ceremony is forever linked with the envelope mix-up.

19:04

That ruined the best picture announcement but it wasn’t the first time.

Something like this happened at the Oscars in 1964 Sammy Davis jr.

Was handed the wrong envelope, while presenting a music Ward leading him to announce the winner for a different category and the winner is whoop.

19:29

John Addison for Tom Jones.

I am so they gave me the wrong envelope with of the NAACP, hears about this.

19:46

Clearly a little envelope mistake ain’t gonna face Sammy Davis jr.

But it does beg.

The question who is responsible for keeping all the envelopes straight and the answer is shockingly.

Not so Hollywood glamorous an accounting firm called pricewaterhousecoopers or PWC for decades.

20:10

The academy has used PWC to count the votes to determine nominees and winners.

The firm is also tasked with keeping the results secret occasionally.

The PWC accountants are mentioned during the ceremony like in this 2015 segment with host.

20:27

Neil, Patrick Harris earlier this week, I went to pricewaterhousecoopers the people in charge of tabulating the Oscar ballots and I gave them my predictions.

They have kept them under lock and key.

Today, they assess.

And some of the accountants are even in attendance on Oscars night.

20:44

Waiting in the wings with A very important job during the ceremony to PWC, accountants are stationed off.

Stage one on each side, and they’re carrying briefcases containing all of the winning envelopes.

Here’s New Yorker, staff, writer, Michael Shulman again, because the presenters come from one side of the stage or the other.

21:06

They take the first envelope of then, there’s a duplicate on the other side of the stage.

In other words, for each category, there are two sets of cards with the winners names.

On them and what you’re supposed to do as the accountant is, if you have duplicate the category is red and you put the duplicate back in your briefcase.

21:27

As the 2017 Oscars neared, their end, everything was going smoothly.

Moonlight had picked up two statues, and LOL and had one big with six, including the award for best actress which went to Emma Stone.

And I realize that A Moment Like This is too huge Confluence of luck and opportunity.

21:49

And so I want to thank Damien chazelle for the opportunity to be part of a project that was so and then it was time for the final award.

Best picture.

Offstage a PWC accountant named Brian cullinan.

22:05

One of the briefcase Guardians, was showing Warren Beatty.

How to open the best picture envelope, cullinan how to track record for loving the spotlight before the 2017 ceremony, he asked one of the show’s producers if he could appear on camera and joke around with Jimmy Kimmel to appease him, they agreed to show him in a quick shot before a commercial break.

22:29

But the bigger concern from the Academy’s perspective, was that cullinan was too active on social media.

The Oscars publicity team, warned him not to post anything during the show but cullinan ignored.

That guidance posting several times throughout the broadcast from backstage and towards the end of the ceremony, when he was holding onto the final two envelopes of the night, he went to Warren Beatty, flip them over to show him this trick.

22:59

How to open the back with the tape during that demonstration?

Cullinan was holding two cards.

One for best picture and a duplicate for best actress.

And then he gave Warren and Warren took the best actress envelope.

23:15

The duplicate, which is now on top of this pile of two envelopes.

Meaning Beatty was now holding the duplicate envelope for the just announced best actress category and cullinan was still holding the one for the top.

Prize of the night.

23:34

Cullinan did have time to realize he had made a mistake but he was distracted when you on that journey and I’m so grateful for that.

So, thank you so much right after he handed Beatty the wrong card, best actress winner, Emma Stone stepped off stage.

23:50

Cullinan took a picture of stone and tweeted it out.

Meanwhile, Beatty and Faye Dunaway were now on stage with a card that red best actress, Emma Stone LOL.

And that’s why baby was so confused when he pulled it out of the envelope, but Dunaway ignored, the other words and just read the name of the film la la la.

24:19

Once that mistake was made, Brian cullinan was supposed to take immediate action, he told a stage manager, I thought the wrong winner had been announced but he refused to go out and interrupt the LOL and acceptance speeches producer, Jordan Horowitz who we heard from at the top of the show was first to step up to the mic.

24:40

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you to the academy.

Thank you to Lionsgate.

Thank you to our incredible cast and crew.

We’re all up here right now.

One of the stage managers jumped on stage and asked to see the envelope that the LOL and producers had I’d been given that was when Jordan realized the card he was holding was for best actress.

25:02

Not best picture.

He didn’t know about the duplicate card system and he had seen Emma Stone’s best actress card in her hands moments earlier.

The only possible explanation for what had happened was someone had stopped time without me knowing taken the card that was in my hand and replaced it with a different card Jordan was in shock.

25:25

But Brian cullinan finally walked out and showed the LOL and team the real best picture card.

I knew there was a mistake at that point and like people were just kind of like wandering around, don’t know what happened and then I was just like, okay, I’m fixing this and that’s where I went up to the bike and I said there’s a mistake Moonlight.

25:45

You guys won best picture.

At first, it seemed like maybe this was a joke or maybe he meant Moonlight one and some larger philosophical way.

No one in the room seemed to believe him.

26:01

And that’s when I saw Warren Beatty like to my left a little bit and I saw him holding the card and having seen the card that was the thing that like convince me that there was an issue.

So I was like they all need to see the card.

And I remember thinking, I hope the cameraman and the director know what to do when I do, what?

26:18

I’m about to do and I grab the card from you and I held it up Moonlight best picture.

Thankfully the cameraman and director were ready.

They cut to a tight shot of the best picture card for the entire world to see Michael Schulman was covering the ceremony that night from a nearby press room, full of journalists, everyone screamed and screamed like people do not expect something to actually happen at the Astros in this way, you know, something something unexpected, something completely spontaneous and unplanned, the celebrities inside, the theater were just as shocked.

27:03

Maybe you’ve seen the since Mima fide moment.

Matt, Damon’s mouth, hangs open, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Cox and eyebrow.

Meryl Streep’s face is completely flushed.

The Moonlight team was similarly in a daze, but eventually they made their way to the stage where they embraced, Jordan and the rest of the LOL and group, then director.

27:29

Barry Jenkins stepped up to speak.

Even in my dream, this could not I’ll be true.

But the hell with dreams.

I’m done with it because this is true.

Oh my goodness.

Moonlight.

The 1.5 million dollar budget movie about the life of a gay.

27:46

Black kid had won best picture coming after two years of Oscar so white.

The moment should have been a slam dunk for the Academy from an Optics perspective but the magnitude of moonlights when felt softened by the chaotic announcement.

28:06

The next morning, Barry Jenkins spoke with CBS and was asked, if the envelope mistake had taken anything away from the big moment.

I don’t know if it diminish the celebration for us.

It just made it much more complicated, as you said, I think the celebration is bound up now between our film La, La Land.

28:27

And the academy originally, the Academy Awards were created to make Hollywood look good.

Today, it’s not so clear that they’re accomplishing, that goal.

After the Moonlight LOL and flub and more recently, the capital S slap the biggest headlines seem to happen when things go horribly wrong.

28:52

I’ve long been a fan of the Glamour and pomp of the ceremony, the drama, the production, the happy tears, the trying not to look disappointed, Smiles, but I have wondered Beyond these aesthetic Delights.

29:08

Why do I still feel moved to tune in.

It’s certainly not to get the definitive take on the best filmmaking of the Year.

Number one, that’s a fraught premise to begin with.

But number two, am I really going to trust a voting body?

29:23

That reflects such a limited sliver of the movie-going population, the steps that the academy has taken post Oscar, so white have been a very mixed bag this year.

Asian actors received a record high for nominations.

29:41

Exciting but also its 2023.

So overdue would be an understatement on the other hand, Viola Davis, and Danielle dead Wyler to black actresses, who were considered shoe-ins, ended up getting overlooked.

29:58

The Oscars narrow view of representation, still only goes so far and as the academy continues to fall short, turns out I’m far from the only one thinking about too.

Hang out the past two ceremonies have been the least watched since the Oscars first began broadcasting on TV and one thing everyone in Hollywood can agree on record low ratings, that’s definitely bad Optics.

30:46

Not past.

It is a Spotify original produced by gimlet and CSP media.

This episode was produced by Ethan Oberman next week.

It’s a Barbie world and we’re just living in it.

It was this Groundswell of, you know, we want this thing with these breasts and parents couldn’t say, no.

31:09

The rest of our team, our producers remotely Phillip and Olivia Riley, our associate.

Producers are Nick, tell Rose, and Laura, Newcombe are in, turn is Jasper.

Jarecki.

The supervising producer is Erica Morrison editing by Zach Stewart Ponte Andrea.

Be Scott is our executive editor fact-checking by Ian.

31:26

Michael sound design and mixing by Emma Monger, original music, by Sachs kicks, Ave Willie, Green, Jay bless and Bobby.

Lord.

Our theme song is Toko, Liana by cocoa with music supervision by Liz Fulton, technical Direction by Zach Schmidt show art by Elysee Harvin.

31:42

Talia Rahman, the executive producer at CSP media.

Exact Stewart Ponte, the executive producer from gimlet is Matt schulze, special.

Thanks to Lydia Pole, Green Abbie ruzicka, Dan Behar Jen hon, Emily wiedemann and Liz Styles, follow not past it now to listen for free exclusively on Spotify, click the little bell next to the follow button to get notifications for new episodes and while you’re there hey why don’t you write as 5 Stars?

32:08

You can follow me on Twitter at Simone.

Plannin thanks for Then we’ll see you next week, Oscar’s so white, they have a perfect credit score.

Oscar so white, they wear Birkenstocks in the winter time that kind of thing.

32:12

Then we’ll see you next week, Oscar’s so white, they have a perfect credit score.

Oscar so white, they wear Birkenstocks in the winter time that kind of thing.