Why The Infamous 'Best Picture Fail' Was Actually A Great Moment For The Oscars

Safe to say that the most talked about Oscars 2017 moment — falsely announcing the winner of the year's biggest film award, and then having that mistakenly proclaimed winner find out about it mid-victory speech — will not go down as the proudest moment in the history of the Academy Awards. Rather obviously, it caused a major heartbreak for one group of people (the amazing cast and crew of La La Land) and partially spoiled a special moment for other (the equally amazing cast and crew of Moonlight).

However, from a certain point of view, I can't help but consider it one of the nicest Oscars moments in recent memory. It served as a nice little reminder for everyone on what this show is (or at least should be) about.

A Celebration Of Movies, Not A Competition

A short while ago, I wrote an article, where I listed some of the issues I have with the Oscars and why I still love this show regardless. Among other things, I focused on how it should first and foremost be a celebration of the year in cinema and not a competition with winners and losers. A great excuse to passionately discuss and reflect on movies in general and not a quest to try and determine who or what is best in this subjective art form.

Now, in that light, what transpired on stage during the Best Picture winner announcement couldn't have been a more fitting way to illustrate my point. You see, in the middle of this little fiasco, we had these truly great but different films in La La Land and Moonlight, which can't really be objectively compared. We then had the cast and crew of La La Land approach the whole thing with utter dignity, as they invited the actual winners on stage, praising them and their film. Fittingly enough, the one's representing Moonlight responded with a similar praise to La La Land and everyone involved in it.

The thing is, in that moment, declaring who "wins" became refreshingly irrelevant. We just had two awesome groups of people behind two amazing cinematic projects praising each other. Or, in other words, celebrating cinema, which is exactly what this whole show should be about. In fact, it was probably best summed up when host Jimmy Kimmel told the crew of La La Land that he'd like to see them win one anyway and why couldn't the Academy just give out a whole bunch of Oscars in each category. He then proceeded to say that it's just an award show and isn't it great that we got some extra speeches.

To Sum Up

So, this whole situation was certainly cringey and uncomfortable on some levels. However, thanks to everyone involved saying all the right things, it also represented the Oscars as a celebration of cinema in the purest and best possible way.