Oscargate is not the end of the world
COLUMNIST
AND the winner... isn’t. Reading out the wrong name at an awards ceremony ensures the only trophy everyone gets is the booby prize of excruciating embarrassment.
In 2008 the then Welsh culture minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas opened the envelope at the Wales Book of the Year bash and declared novelist Tom Bullough had won the £10,000 prize.
The young author had almost reached the stage to receive the cheque, amid rapturous audience applause, when it was announced a mistake had been made. The winner was actually the veteran poet Dannie Abse.
Thomas apologised immediately, Bullough swiftly went back to his seat. And didn’t return to the stage to pick up his £1,000 runner-up prize.
The minister came in for a lot of flak. Putting the gaffe down to simple human error – both winner and runners-up names were printed on the card, though the former was in bold type – Thomas did his best to make amends.
When he was wound up about the blunder by a Conservative AM in the Assembly chamber the following day, he said: “I’m sorry you’ve taken that attitude to the incident at the Academi. It was a misunderstanding, a genuine mistake, which I take full responsibility for.
“But it’s a very serious situation and it did affect a number of people who had been nominated for a very important prize...I’ve apologised to Academi, I’ve also apologised to all the authors involved and I’ve written to them again today to apologise.”
No amount of ministerial contrition seemed to soothe Bullough, however. In the blog he wrote shortly afterwards – with the rather spectacular title of “A Glimpse of Hell” - he described the mistake as a “truly appalling experience”.
The novelist revealed: “Such a quick succession of euphoria, bewilderment, vertigo, humiliation, despair and absolute brokenheartedness have no place in real life. I am truly not somebody given to complaining, but that was cruel. It was cruel because it was shoddy. It cannot be put down simply to accident. As one person said to me last night, it wouldn’t have happened at the Oscars.”
Well, actually... As we’ve seen in recent days, it can happen at the Oscars. Rhodri Glyn Thomas was the first person I thought of when that epic fail described as the “biggest mistake in 89 years of the Academy Awards” unfolded. When you’ve made a big cock-up sometimes the only consolation comes in the schadenfreude of seeing someone else do it on an even bigger scale.
The error that briefly saw La La Land named as Best Picture instead of Moonlight was down to two accountants – Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz – muddling up the main award envelopes that were handed to Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty at last Sunday’s ceremony.
The fact that Cullinan was busy tweeting a photo of Best Actress winner Emma Stone moments before, as only a star-struck number cruncher might, has been deemed a factor. Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs blamed “distraction” for the bungle.
And yes it was mortifying for all concerned but, come on, nobody died. Yet according to stories in the US media yesterday there are worries somebody might. The hapless pair from Pricewaterhouse Coopers have been given bodyguards following reports they have received death threats on social media.
After details of their addresses and photos of their families were published online, security has been beefed up at their respective residences. Celebrity website TMZ.com said Cullinan and Ruiz were in fear of their lives.
What a ridiculous and horrible situation they find themselves in after making a mix-up that any normal fallible person will recognise. There are human errors that have grave, catastrophic and potentially fatal consequences. Shuffling the envelopes back stage at the Oscars does not fall into this category. To date, no-one has ever expired of pure embarrassment.
And there is always a cheering flip side to a complete balls-up. As George Bernard Shaw once said: “Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.”
I know this from personal experience. The biggest professional slipup I ever made was never repeated. My heinous crime was committed when I was a cub reporter on the Neath Guardian 25 years ago. The editor went on holiday and left me in charge. This was no reflection of my precocious talent. He had no choice – I was the only other member of staff.
But puffed with the unimaginable power of informing and entertaining readers from Bryncoch to Briton Ferry, I sat in his London Road office and surveyed my empire. The biggest responsibility was choosing the splash. That week local residents were worried there was too much of something in the water. I laid out a dramatic front page.
The Neath Guardian was free so the print run was massive. And as the first copies of the newspaper I had created arrived in the office, I cut the cord on the bundles with the pride of a mother cradling her newborn. On the opposite desk, Liam the sports reporter was engrossed in the front page. This was concerning. He usually only looked at the back page. He came in once a week to write the Neath match report. It was a task that caused him considerable pain because he was a fanatical Swansea fan. This was also his excuse for his devotion to white socks.
Liam looked up from my front page. His expression was somewhere between horror and amusement.
“Car... how do you spell fluoride?”