Hope no Oscar brouhaha this year

With the 2012-2013 awards season coming to its much awaited conclusion come Oscar’s night, who do you think is/are joining the leagues of the likes of Meryl Streep, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Hudson, etc to scoop the Triple Crown for acting? It’s evident who are these season’s favorites with the Golden Globe and SAG trophies handed out to the expected winners. But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have a mind of its own and many times over, it bypassed those who should have been winners and handed the gold-plated statuette to someone we all didn’t expect to win. Many times over, in fact, a landslide of honors from Golden Globe, SAG, and dozens of critics circle awards aren’t enough to prove your cause worthy with the almighty-Academy.

Cinematic history would always vindicate the cause of the left-out, the overlooked and the underrated. Let us for example the case Elizabeth Taylor winning the Oscar for her undeserving performance. Prior to 1960, she’s been through a lot in life. She’s Hollywood’s good girl gone bad, actually and she’s just gotten through from an operation that scarred her neck. Then she paraded all around Hollywood wearing outfits that prominently showcased the scar and come the awards night the Academy’s sympathy vote made her the runaway winner—putting the more deserving performance of Deborah and Greer Garson on the sideline.

Way back when the Oscars was like two years old, Mary Pickford, the queen of silent movie (then already bygone and forgotten) decided it was time to cap a glittering career that was. In fact, she was one of the 36 founders of the Academy. It was even reported asked some members to have tea of her and her campaigning to win the award became notorious. She won the award but public opinion confirmed she didn’t deserve it.

And who would forget the controversial yet finely woven Brokeback Mountain (2005), who, in my opinion should have won the best picture prize over Crash. After all, the latter proved an overrated directorial debut. I bet Brokeback lost because a lot of homophobic sentiments, while Crash was based on a real life event and the director Paul Haggis was fresh from winning the 2004 Oscar for screenwriting.

Then, I’d like to reiterate how erroneous the Academy declared Marisa Tomei’s best supporting actress win. Rumor has it that Vanessa Redgrave was the actual winner but Jack Palance, either by old age or he was plainly drunk misread the winners name and the Academy just didn’t have the courage to ask Tomei to return her trophy.

There are still dozens of Oscar blunders that keep on tainting the Oscar’s golden image… and I don’t want to reiterate them here. Let’s just all hope and pray that the Academy doesn’t commit that mistake, least, we’ll truly believe that history repeats itself… again and again and again.