12 Wild Oscar Conspiracy Theories People Actually Believe
10. The Argo Affair: Political Nepotism & Ben Affleck’s Abs
There’s a couple of conspiracy theories floating around Ben Affleck’s third directorial outing Argo and its hit and miss success at the 85th Academy Awards in 2013.
The first revolves around its supposedly suspicious Best Picture win. Despite already winning a whole host of Best Film nods from the likes of the BAFTAs, Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards some tin foil hat wearers (and presumably a few Spielberg fanatics too) thought Argo’s victory may have been spurred on by a bit of good old political nepotism.
You see shortly before the Academy Awards took place U.S. Congressman Joe Courtney sent a letter to Steven Spielberg, whose historical drama Lincoln was also up for Best Picture, questioning the historical accuracy of his latest film.
Normally there would be nothing inherently wrong about a politician taking an interest in cinematic historical accuracy, save for the fact that Courtney had ties to Affleck who had previously campaigned for him back in 2006. Cue a bunch of rumours about Affleck calling in a favour and asking Courtney to use his political clout to demean Lincoln to give Argo a better shot at winning Best Picture.
Another oddity surrounding Argo is that while it scooped Best Picture (whether rightfully or not), Affleck was completely snubbed when it came around to doling out the Best Director nominations that year.
That’s quite an unusual occurrence at the Oscars where the two awards usually go hand in hand. In fact, in the Academy Awards’ eighty-nine-year long history a film bestowed with a Best Picture award not also winning Best Director has only happened some twenty-odd times.
None other than highly respectable and totally reliable media outlet Fox News had the perfect explanation for this rebuffal. Not only had Affleck had the audacity to cast himself in the main role in his own film, he also flaunted his toned torso in a gratuitous shower scene – a move that Fox thought off-put Academy voters may have found a tad too narcissistic.
And that is the story of how Affleck’s rock-hard abs may have cost him a Best Director Oscar.