If Oscar Acceptance Speeches Were Truthful
Ah, Oscar season. It's the time of year when Americans unite because of an overwhelming desire to glue-gun their eyelids closed and puncture their eardrums with pencils in order to avoid horribly pretentious acceptance speeches. But while some opt for simply changing the channel-or, insanely, continuing to watch-the overwhelming consensus is that these speeches are staged, self-indulgent and utterly unrealistic interpretations of why the speech-giver won the Oscar. After all, there's a pretty good chance that the people who make their living in the acting business are acting in their speeches, no? Here are the primest examples from the last decade.
FIVE-WORD SUMMARY OF ACTUAL SPEECH: "I'm king of the virgins!"
WHAT WOULD'VE BEEN MORE ACCURATE: "Wow. I'm so, well, um, not really surprised at all. Like 75 percent of the Academy actually worked on this darn movie. Simply put: you pump 200 mil into the Hollywood economy, and people are gonna pay you back for helping 'em out, you know? Heck-the sound guy alone made 150 grand, and I think we put the makeup guy's kid through college. Literally. We put him down as 'best boy' or 'key grip' or something, but we actually just paid for his tuition at UCLA. And guess what? His dad gets to vote for these little guys." "Oh, and that nude scene with Kate Winslet was totally unnecessary, but, gosh, I'm glad I thought it up and said it was 'integral to the dignity of the script.' I bet you studs out there are too!"
FIVE-WORD SUMMARY OF ACTUAL SPEECH: "Oh my God, you guys!"
WHAT WOULD'VE BEEN MORE ACCURATE: "Wow. Oh wow. This is fucking AWESOME! We had no idea you could get one of these bad-boys just for handing a few pages of loose-leaf over to an A-list director and letting him make a kick-ass movie out of your rough, vague ideas. SWEET! I mean, this movie was really, really good"¦ WILL HUNTING! Just kidding. Seriously, though-this script was amazing, and you guys believe we wrote it? Please. You guys aaaah wicked dumb -right, right? But it's not your fault -right, right? HA! Just look at all the other great screenplays we're going to go on and write: there's, um, well"¦there's nothing, because we can't write for shit. Writing's gay anyways-we're gonna make a bunch of movies where we get to kick people in the face."
FIVE-WORD SUMMARY OF ACTUAL SPEECH: "I have blown my brother."
WHAT WOULD'VE BEEN MORE ACCURATE: "I'd like to thank my father, John Voight, for banging my mom-it opened up countless doors in Hollywood for me. Without nepotism, I'd be like the rest of the vast majority of mildly talented actresses with great racks: praying for a role pretending to blow a dude with a barbed wire tattoo on Cinemax. So thanks, dad. Oh, and sorry for saying I hate your guts and all that jazz. It's pretty clear that without half your DNA, I wouldn't have a career. Still, you're kind of an asshole for giving me all that money and a sheltered, ideal upper-class childhood. And one more thing-I really have blown my brother. Many, many times."
FIVE-WORD SUMMARY OF ACTUAL SPEECH: "Blah, blah, donuts, fuck Bush."
WHAT WOULD'VE BEEN MORE ACCURATE: "Man, I'm double out of breath-both from the 15-foot walk to this delicious-looking microphone, as well as from my sheer disbelief that the Academy would classify my work as non-fiction." "I guess it was 'real' when I went over to Charleton Heston's house and screamed at him about an accident in another state that was totally unrelated to him. But come on, people, that would be like yelling at Ronald McDonald for the 74 heart-attacks I've suffered this year-he represents the McDonald's, but he has absolutely nothing to do with me eating those 18,000 bunless Big Macs, you know? Plus, he's not clearly suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's." "Speaking of which: who wants to grab some Mickey-D's? You can have my all my buns."
