GoldenJCJ

From what I heard it was the Matt Damon lookalike that handed Beatty the envelope before walking on stage. Sounds like it falls squarely on that dude. Something tells me he won't be around for next year's show.

Trevor

So did I read that no one knows the winners except those two people? Why did they not both rush over and fix the mistake immediately instead of waiting several minutes?

And why even have this system of two briefcases of envelopes to allow this possible mistake? I understand needing two sets and them taking separate routes to the ceremony, just in case; but once there they should just stick to one set of envelopes.

Mabuse

No one should lose their job over this. It was the best moment at the Oscars in years. Very entertaining to watch the facade fall for a moment. The producer of La La Land was super magnanimous, and it was funny.

Hazel Motes

To add to this, I don't think he showed Faye the envelope to have her read it. I think he showed it to her to confirm his own confusion. He showed it to her kind of like "what the fuck is this supposed to mean". But Faye thought Beatty was pulling a joke, so as soon as she saw La La Land, she just blurted it out. But of course thats not her fault either. I don't blame either of them one bit, on any level. It was live tv with millions of people watching and I don't blame either of them for being confused in the moment. The blame lands squarely on the shoulders of whoever gave Warren the wrong envelope and works backwards from there.

GatorDeb

Nah, I do think Faye Dunaway carries some guilt. The envelope clearly showed Best Actress and Stone's name... why would the Best Picture card have Stone's name? Can't remember the details but this has happened before and the person presenting realized the mistake and got the right card and announced the right winner.

Edit: Ok so this is awesome apparently Dunaway and Beatty had been bickering over who got to announce for days (they didn't even walk out together) and he finally relented and when he stopped with the envelope confused because something seemed wrong she thought he was trying to one-up her and read the winner and she blurted out the first thing she saw on the envelope

That does make sense.

mcnabb

I do wonder how these actors would have reacted if this were an individual award that got mixed up? The Best Picture goes to the Producer who most people don't really know of (along with the whole cast up there so the chaos actually helped cushion the blow when they were told), but what if this happens for the Best Actress Award and Emma Stone had to give it back in the middle of the Ceremony? Can you imagine if someone walked up right in the middle of the speech and told her the award wasn't hers as I think it wouldn't have been as harmonious as it is now between both sides?

Ash Ketchum

Apparently the Matt Damon lookalike, Brian Cullinan, was tweeting about Emma Stone backstage and was so distracted he gave Beatty the wrong envelope. Hopefully he can get a job as Damon's stand-in. If even Damon will hire him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/m...dayspaper&_r=0

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/b...ef=todayspaper

The Times' 2 film critics (+ 1 gay black male culture critic) weigh in on this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/m...ef=todayspaper

GuessWho

"Gary from Chicago" was released from a 20-year jail stint just 3 days before the Oscars

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...228-story.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain...icle-1.2984176

Groucho

Who knew that letting an ex-con touch Nicole Kidman would be the second biggest blunder of the night?

robin2099

I find envelopegate hilarious. I'm not a fan of the Oscars as it's basically a way for Hollywood to circle jerk each other for three hours. They also are pretty meaningless. Five years later can anyone say who was Best Actress, Actor or picture without using Google? I sure can't.

Abob Teff

It's already been touched on and I haven't had a chance to read anything yet, but on the radio this morning they said the same things:

Beatty and Dunaway had been been fighting for days over who would get to announce the winner. Dunaway thought Beatty's reactions meant he was going to steal it back after he had finally relented, so she hurried up and made the announcement.

The guy who handed Beatty the envelope had been "tweeting like a mad man" during the whole show and hurriedly deleted his last message when the mishap occurred. He is/was a partner in the firm, not an intern.

As soon as Dunaway said "La La Land" both partners knew a mixup had happened and sprung into action (apparently after deleting a twitter message though). It took several moments to get the production staff to understand and react.

Paff

Gee, maybe if Beatty had just bedded Dunaway like he did with the rest of his co-stars, there'd be no feud, and they would have resolved this on stage. 50 years is a lot of built up sexual tension.

(for those wondering what I'm talking about, it's long been rumored that Beatty wouldn't sleep with Faye Dunaway, as his Clyde Barrow was written to be impotent and Beatty is a method actor)

mattysemo247

I can't say that I disagree with him

Mabuse

She's feisty.

Tv people are so weird. It's a fucking tv show. Calm down. You would fire someone who caused a mistake that led to a fascinating moment of television? No wonder tv mostly sucks.

Mr. Flix

It's often hard enough to remember past Best Picture winners, let alone Best Picture nominees. The producers of both Moonlight and especially La La Land ought to be thankful that their movies will now be much more memorable in years to come thanks to this gaffe.

Mabuse

Absolutely. This is bigger than Shasheem Littlefeather.

GuessWho

She's also a dude

Leslie Moonves

fujishig

Hey it's Julie Chen's better half.

Why would Dunaway and Beatty bicker over who got to announce the winner? Does this happen often with the announcers, seems like an odd thing to want to fight for.

GuessWho

When all of the tv replays on the news the next morning begin with "and the Oscar goes to..." you want to be the one saying it, not the one standing around like a dope.

DaveyJoe

The card has the name of the movie and the Producer(s) of the movie, who is the actual recipient of the award. It's common for actors to produce movies these days, sometimes movies they even star in. Brad Pitt was a producer of 12 Years a Slave, and so he was one of the recipients when it won for Best Picture. For all Faye new, Emma was one of the producers of La La Land.

Double_Oh_7

Are you kidding? These are two huge veteran Hollywood egos we're talking about.

Double_Oh_7

That's not exclusive to the Oscars. Can you name the teams that won the World Series or Super Bowl five years ago? Emmy winners? Grammy winners? I guess it's all pretty meaningless.

robin2099

That's a valid point.

Defiant1

The accountants do have the right to bum rush the stage and stop everything if the wrong person/film is named. The fact that they didn't and let it go on for almost three minutes is a horrible blunder.

JaxComet

That's just one of the many things that stood out. Forget the Trump jokes, the entire show including many of the awards were set up to push the Liberal agenda.

We'll start with Zootopia as you've mentioned above. Probably the weakest of the animated nominees but of course it won. The story uses animals to show the importance of racial tolerance.

The beloved musical La La Land loses to Moonlight? This would never happen any other year. The academy loves it's crappy musicals. They had to give the award to the film about the coming of age of a gay black male. The only thing that would have worked better would be if it was a gay, black immigrant.

Mahershala Ali of course wins best supporting actor for the same film although he was only in the movie for about the first 30-40 minutes.

Best Foreign Film - Of course a film from Iran is not only nominated but wins!
What could be better. The boycott of the director and an angry speech from one of his own.

I don't know much about "Makeup" awards but supposedly Suicide Squad winning was a big upset. Sure, why not. Let's get the Italians up there to include an immigrant mention in their speech.

Given that the show had it's worst ratings in nine years which was probably expected. You might argue that even the Best Picture screw up was staged to add a bit of publicity.