An Oscar speech is a public monologue given by a person who has just been awarded an Academy Award, an annual accolade given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honor cinematic achievements in the film industry. Though speeches are common for award ceremonies, it is a particularly significant feature of the Academy Awards due to their worldwide audience and history of featuring prominent celebrities.
History
Oscar speeches have always been a significant aspect of the ceremony and have often been very influential. NineMSN explains, "If you're an Academy Award-winning celeb, you can either give a boring run-of-the-mill acceptance speech, a touching acceptance speech, or a crazy over-the-top acceptance speech". The New Yorker said:
Common pitfalls include self-aggrandizement, excessive weepiness, and sheer who-invited-this-person weirdness. Some are passive-aggressive. Some are strident. Some are unsettling. At their best, they offer a jolt of liberating mania, or a banquet of finely calibrated self-deprecation, gratitude, and poise.
Characteristics
The New Yorker graded the speeches in the 2013 Academy Awards, a common practice among news outlets. Christoph Waltz's "short and classy speech... without condescension" was graded an "A minus" while Quentin Tarantino's "rubber-faced self-mythologizing" was graded a "C". At the 2013 Oscars, Jennifer Lawrence fell when approaching the stage to accept the award for best actress. She attempted to make up for her fall in her speech by saying, "You guys are all just standing because I fell and that's really embarrassing". By the next day pictures of her fall had gone viral in the Internet. Her fall was mentioned by host Ellen DeGeneres in her opening monologue at the 2014 Oscars. Many lines from Oscar speeches have become iconic, often being quoted in the pop culture vernacular. They are often spoofed in other media. Some speeches comment on the film industry. Some are heartfelt messages to friends, family, and supporters. Some raise awareness for sensitive topics, while others are funny insights. Sometimes people do unexpected things during their Oscar speeches. For example, in 1992, while accepting his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for City Slickers, Jack Palance did one-arm pushups on the floor to demonstrate his physical strength and counteract the view of some executives who had not wanted to "risk" hiring an elderly person for fear they may die during filming. When Jorge Drexler accepted the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2005, instead of a speech he sang the winning song, "Al Otro Lado del Río", as he had not been invited to perform earlier in the ceremony. The Oscar speeches are restricted to a time limit of 45 seconds. There is play-off music after an actor has reached their time limit, and there are reminders on the teleprompter. If they take too long, the microphone cuts out. In 2004, Jack Black and Will Ferrell performed a song to the tune of the piece of music, although this was as part of a presentation routine and not during a speech overrun. There are certain recurring themes in Oscar speeches, particularly in the people thanked. These can range from an actor's agent to the film's director, to their co-stars, to their God, to their idols and to their parents.
Controversies
Some speeches can cause uproars thanks to political and social subject matters like Michael Moore's diatribe on George W. Bush and Vanessa Redgrave's stance on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Sometimes a confusing or ambiguous statement made in a speech can attract attention in the media. In Angelina Jolie's Best Supporting Actress speech in 2000 for Girl, Interrupted, she said, "I'm so in love with my brother right now", leading to accusations of incest with her brother, actor and producer, James Haven. In 1973, Marlon Brando famously refused an Oscar due to his support of Native Americans. A part of his speech was read on stage by Sacheen Littlefeather.
Superlative speeches
The longest Oscar speech was given by Greer Garson at the 15th Academy Awards after she was named Best Actress for 1942 for Mrs. Miniver. Her speech ran for nearly six minutes. It was shortly after this incident that the Academy set forty-five seconds as the allotted time for an acceptance speech and began to cut the winners off after this time limit. The shortest Oscar speech has been when recipients simply say "thank you". Both Clark Gable and Alfred Hitchcock kept it simple, and when Patty Duke was named Best Supporting Actress in 1962 for The Miracle Worker at the 35th Academy Awards, her acceptance speech was, simply, two words"Thank you" after which she walked off the stage.
