Will Oscar Soldier On If War Comes?
By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY
The Oscars will probably go on. That’s as specific as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can be, as war with Iraq seems unavoidable.
With talk centering on a mid-March attack, the timing couldn’t be worse for the planned March 23 Oscar telecast. But even if troops invade, the ABC show √≥ second only to the Super Bowl in annual viewership √≥ is unlikely to be delayed, academy officials say.
“The issue has come up before, and we’ve taken a very hard-line stance saying it will go on no matter what,” says producer Mark Johnson, an academy board member. “The theory being that the country loves entertainment during moments of crisis.”
No contingency plans are in place and no formal discussions have been held, academy spokesman John Pavlik says. “We have to wait and see.”
But what to do if war begins is likely to be a topic of discussion at tonight’s academy board meeting.
“I know the producer and the people upstairs have it in their minds, but not in a way that it’s written on paper,” Pavlik says.
At ABC, discussions are being held as to how to tastefully break in on Oscar coverage with news from the war.
“If there are world events that warrant coverage on the night of the Academy Awards, ABC News will bring them to the American audience with the full support of the academy,” ABC senior vice president Kevin Brockman says.
Academy president Frank Pierson said in a statement: “The possibility of war or a high security alert are always on our minds, as they must be to most people. Our security plans are aimed at making people at the Oscars … feel both safe and comfortable. We will meet any new or unexpected events with these goals as our guidelines.”
In 2001, the Emmy awards show was postponed twice in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A similar catastrophic event is one possible scenario that might postpone the Oscars.
History favors soldiering on.
“We held it every year during World War II,” Pavlik says. “But the industry was so involved in the war effort in those days.”
Those days were also pre-television and the ceremony was not the multimillion-dollar enterprise it is today. Plus, this is the Oscars’ 75th anniversary.
But both the ceremony and the parties may be scaled-down affairs, says Jeffrey Best, whose company Best Events is planning Oscar parties for Miramax and Paramount Pictures. “For a celebrity, it’s probably not proper to have a picture of yourself sipping champagne and eating caviar when American troops are fighting.”
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