Oscars 2017: What Hollywood can forgive ... and what it can’t
SEX scandals, racist slurs, misogyny and abuse allegations ... the Oscars, it seems, will forgive some Hollywood stars for just about anything.
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SEX scandals, racist slurs, abuse allegations and misogyny ... the academy, it seems, will forgive Hollywood stars just about anything enough to be nominated for an Oscar.
But do the controversial actors, writers and directors actually win?
Woody Allen, Mel Gibson, Roman Polanski, and Sean Penn won Oscars despite much-publicised scandals in their personal — and professional — lives.
Will Best Actor nominee Casey Affleck do the same tomorrow?
Affleck, 41, is the favourite to win for his acclaimed role in Manchester By The Sea.
But his Oscar nomination has been marred by the sexual harassment lawsuits he faced stemming from I’m Still Here, the mock doco he directed in 2010.
WILL CASEY AFFLECK ACTUALLY WIN AN OSCAR?
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Affleck has so far won the Golden Globe and BAFTA this year ... but missed out on the Screen Actors Guild Award (fellow Oscar nominee Denzel Washington won for Fences).
The SAGs shares similar voters to the Oscars, which are decided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
So what scandals can Hollywood forgive ... and what can’t it?
WOODY ALLEN
Hollywood collectively went WTF when Woody Allen’s romantic relationship with Soon-Yi Previn went public in 1992 (Soon-Yi is the adopted daughter of Allen’s former girlfriend, Mia Farrow).
Allen was also plagued by allegations of child molestation and “inappropriate touching” made by his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow.
“I was thinking, if I don’t speak out, I’ll regret it on my death bed,” Dylan said, writing for the New York Times in 2014.
In response to her claims, a rep for Allen told People: “Mr. Allen has read the article and found it untrue and disgraceful”.
Despite the allegations, Allen has been nominated for 24 Oscars since 1977 — nine since the allegations. Allen most recently won Best Original Screenplay for Midnight In Paris (2011) — a movie he wrote and directed.
Not that Allen cares about the Oscars — at all.
He has only ever attended the awards once, back in 2002, saying he has “no regard for that kind of ceremony”.
ROMAN POLANSKI
French-Polish director Roman Polanski, 83, admitted to raping a 13 year old girl in 1977 and served 42 days in jail for the crime.
The Chinatown director fled the United States the following year in 1978 — after concerns he would be jailed for 50 years despite his plea deal.
He has remained a fugitive in France for four decades.
In that time, Polanski’s work has still been nominated for Oscars — and actually won. He was named Best Director in 2002 for The Pianist, and received a standing ovation when Harrison Ford accepted it on his behalf.
This month, Polanski’s lawyer Harland Braun launched a legal bid for Polanski to return to the States and avoid further jail time if he does.
Last month, Polanski — who was married to Sharon Tate, the actor who was murdered by the Manson family — was forced to turn down an invitation to head The Cesar Awards (France’s equivalent of the Oscars) after protests over his appointment by women’s rights groups.
“This controversy has been generated by totally unfounded information, forty years after the issue in question. It has deeply saddened Roman Polanski and his family,” a rep for the director said last month.
MEL GIBSON
He is nominated for Best Director for his latest movie, Hacksaw Ridge, but Mel Gibson’s career has been marred by controversy.
This year marks his first Oscar nomination more than two decades, since Braveheart (1995), and New York Post’s Page Six declared Gibson, 61, is “back after a decade in Hollywood exile”.
It was a long exile, too, prompted by a string of scandals, which led to him being dropped by Hollywood mega agency, WME.
Australian-raised Gibson’s dramatic fall from grace included his anti-Semitic tirade directed at a Jewish Los Angeles police officer in 2006 (Gibson later described his own behaviour as “despicable”).
Add to that alcohol-fuelled tirades, homophobic slurs and domestic violence towards his ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva (Gibson pleaded guilty to hitting Grigorieva).
In an expletive-laden leaked recording of a phone call to Grigorieva (who is the mother of Gibson’s daughter, Lucia), Gibson said: “You go out in public and it’s a f****** embarrassment to me! You look like a f****** b**** on (ecstasy)”.
“And if you get raped by a pack of n*****s it’ll be your fault. All right? Because you provoked it,” Gibson said.
In a 2011 interview with Deadline, Gibson described it as “one terribly, awful moment in time, said to one person, in the span of one day and doesn’t represent what I truly believe or how I’ve treated people my entire life“.
Regardless of whether he wins, Hacksaw Ridge’s six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Gibson, certainly signals Gibson’s return to favour in Hollywood ... for his work, at least.
CASEY AFFLECK
The Manchester By The Sea star, 41, was sued for a combined $US4.25 million by producer Amanda White and cinematographer Magdalena Gorka for sexual harassment.
The allegations stemmed from his alleged conduct on the set of I’m Still Here, the mock doco Affleck directed starring Joaquin Phoenix.
Among the allegations was Gorka’s claim that she was subjected to a “near daily barrage of sexual comments, innuendo and unwelcome advances”, The Guardian reported in 2010.
Both cases were settled out of court and the terms kept confidential.
Actors including Fresh Off The Boat star Constance Wu have publicly opposed Affleck’s Oscar nomination. Wu tweeted that it reinforced “the industry’s gross and often hidden mistreatment of women”.
Affleck has made vague comments about it during this awards season.
On stage at the Golden Globes, he said: “It’s my kids who give me permission to do this because they have the character to keep at bay all the noise that sometimes surrounds people who live publicly“.
In a statement to the New York Times in November, Affleck said of the allegations: “It was settled to the satisfaction of all. I was hurt and upset — I am sure all were — but I am over it”.
“It was an unfortunate situation — mostly for the innocent bystanders of the families of those involved,” Affleck said.
SEAN PENN
He is one of Hollywood’s bad boys, known as much for his womanising ways as his acting prowess.
Scandals have included a volatile and short-lived marriage to Madonna, a failed engagement to Charlize Theron which reportedly ended when she “ghosted” him, and public PDA with a much younger woman.
Penn, 56, was widely criticised for his “failed” 2016 interview with drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán for Rolling Stone.
“Let me be clear. My article has failed,” Penn said last year.
“I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to contribute to this conversation on the war on drugs.”
The political activist and humanitarian was accused of racism for comments he made onstage at the Oscars in 2015.
“Who gave this son of a b***h his green card?,” Penn said, while presenting Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu the Best Picture award for Birdman.
Penn refused to apologise for the remarks, which offended some, saying it was an in-joke between him and his friend, Iñárritu.
“I’m always surprised by flagrant stupidity. I keep having more hope,” Penn said in March 2015, according to Complex.
“I have absolutely no apologies. In fact, I have a big f**k you for every ... anybody who is so stupid not to have gotten the irony when you’ve got a country that is so xenophobic,” he said. “If they had their way, you wouldn’t have great filmmakers like Alejandro working in this country. Thank god we do.”
Despite Penn’s bad body reputation, he has remained in favour with Oscars voters, winning Best Actor twice, for Milk (2009) and Mystic River (2004).
Originally published as Oscars 2017: What Hollywood can forgive ... and what it can’t
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