Bizarre Academy Awards Speech Explained

So what exactly was up with that Oscars acceptance speech last night? No, not Mo'Nique, railing against the Oscars being about politics or whatever, but the vaunted documentary short film category. If you missed it, it's being called the Oscars' "Kanye moment," in which director Roger Ross Williams had his acceptance speech interrupted by a strange woman. At the time, I thought she was just really nervous, but it turns out she had no real business on that stage. Her name is Elinor Burkett, and she was a producer of the short, Music by Prudence, emphasis on was. She left the project about a year ago, according to Williams, who also told Salon the he was the only one supposed to be on stage to accept, in keeping with an Academy stipulation regarding acceptance speeches. There is, as you might suspsect, bad blood between the documentarians. Each of them told Salon their side of the story. First, The Interrupter:

"What happened was the director and I had a bad difference over the direction of the film that resulted in a lawsuit that has settled amicably out of court. But there have been all these events around the Oscars, and I wasn’t invited to any of them. And he’s not speaking to me. So we weren’t even able to discuss ahead of the time who would be the one person allowed to speak if we won. And then, as I’m sure you saw, when we won, he raced up there to accept the award. And his mother took her cane and blocked me. So I couldn’t get up there very fast."

And now the counter-argurment:

"Only one person is allowed to accept the award. I was the director, and she was removed from the project nearly a year ago, but she was able to still qualify as a producer on the project, and be an official nominee. But she was very angry — she actually removed herself from the project – because she wanted more creative control. "That was handled by the publicist for the academy. I don’t know what they told her. The academy is very clear that only one person can speak. I own the film. She has no claim whatsoever. She has nothing to do with the movie. She just ambushed me. I was sort of in shock."

I side with the guy who didn't seem crazy on worldwide television. But make up your own mind. The fun starts at around 2:30 in this video:

Comments

[Darrin]

I KNEW that woman wasn't supposed to be on that stage!!! Thanks Colin for clearing that up.

Jeez, lady, if YOU remove yourself from a film, guess what? In OUR universe, you don't qualify to accept awards on behalf of that film!

[Gman]

That is one crazy bitch!

[me007]

Very rude woman. She presented herself as self-centred and beligerent.

[Krystal]

If Burkett wasn't supposed to be on the stage, then why did the Academy announce her name 3 times (along with Williams' name) and why were there 2 Oscar statues, one for him & one for her? (shown at 2:57 in the video) This contradicts his arguments that "only one person is allowed to accept the award" & that "she has nothing to do with the movie." Plus at 2:36 in the video, it shows that he is indeed hurrying ahead of Burkett to get to the stage first, which seems rude to me, notwithstanding the evident acrimonious relationship.

In my experience, it's quite often the smooth-sounding seemingly-nice person who's not to be trusted.

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