20 Devastating Oscars Moments Hidden In Plain Sight
1. First Black Director To Win An Oscar Has Speech Hijacked
At the 2010 Oscars, Music by Prudence won the Best Documentary Short Oscar, at which point director Roger Ross Williams took to the stage to gratefully accept the award.
But after about 15 seconds of talking, the short's producer, Elinor Burkett, rushed onto the stage and interrupted Williams, saying, "The man never lets the woman talk. Isn't that just the classic thing?"
Burkett then gave her own acceptance speech while Williams had no choice but to stand there awkwardly, and though many criticised Burkett's behaviour as brash and rude, the full context makes it so, so much worse.
Williams' Oscar win actually made him the first Black filmmaker in Oscar history to win a directing Oscar, and so for a white woman to hit the stage and steal his moment away makes it even more egregious.
It ultimately turns out that Williams and Burkett had creative differences about their film in post-production, and the visible animosity stems from that.
Either way, it was a bad look for Burkett, though Williams took the moment in good grace, and has since claimed that due to the enormous amounts of positive publicity he received as a result, it was "the best thing that ever happened" to him.