US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has his own theory on why the Oscars Best Picture mix-up happened – they were too busy thinking about him, of course.
“I think they were focused so hard on politics that they didn’t get the act together at the end,” Trump told Breitbart, the conservative news site previously run by his key advisor Steve Bannon.
It was a little sad. It took away from the glamour of the Oscars. It didn’t feel like a very glamorous evening. I’ve been to the Oscars. There was something special missing, and then to end it that way was sad.
It’s true that the President was much talked-about on the night, with host Jimmy Kimmel keeping up a steady stream of Trump jokes throughout the ceremony.
At one point, he made the audience give ‘overrated’ Meryl Streep a standing ovation, and thanked Trump for making the Oscars look less racist:
I want to say thank you to President Trump. Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? It’s gone. Thanks to him!
The winner of Best Foreign Film, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, boycotted the ceremony in protest of Trump’s immigration ban – a prepared statement was read in his stead, which called out the President’s “deceitful justification for aggression and war”.
Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal also targeted the ban while presenting the award for Best Animated Film, saying he was “against any form of wall that separates us”.
A lot of actors are migrant workers. We travel all over the world, we construct stories, we build life but cannot be divided.
However, as has been much discussed over the past few days, the gaffe was down to confusion over envelopes backstage.
They could have been slagging Trump while they were doing it, but who can be sure? Either way: Sad!
