The Academy Awards will apparently avoid a threatening embarrassment for this year’s show and will not ask any previous winners to get to the stage and speak glowing about the “Emilia Pérez” star and the best actress nominated Karla Sofía Gascón.
Ever since the Oscar campaign for Gascón began to crumble over its history of racist and anti-Muslim tweets, Oscar viewers have wondered how the academy would handle her on the show.
Particularly worrying was the fact that the Oscar producers previously announced that they would get back the “Fab 5” format, which was first used in 2009, where five previous winners present a prize together, with each of the previous winners who praise one of the year nominated.
When this format has been implemented earlier, it was used in the four actor categories, with former Oscar winners who spoke directly and increased praise for the nominees who sat in the audience in front of them. And in the wake of the widespread condemnation of Gascón’s old tweets, the question was obvious: who would they be on stage and say nice things about the shameful “Emilia Perez” star?
Now it turns out that the academy has a way out. When it announced the return of the FAB 5 format, the news was consciously vague, without mentioning the categories where it would be used. Thewrap has learned that Oscars will really bring back Fab 5 – just not in the actress categories.
Instead, it will be used in categories to highlight talent below the line, with remarkable Oscar winners who talk about contributions from people behind the scenes.
In the actress categories, the format will probably be the usual, where last year’s winners – all of which were announced as presenters on Wednesday – will speak in general and then name the nominees, without exaggerating specific praise for any of them.
If so, it will probably fall into last year’s best actor, the “Oppenheimer” star Cillian Murphy, to read the list of names containing Gascóns and to give the winner the winner.
