Did Academy Officials Pinkwash Scott Rudin's Declaration Of Superproducerly Love?: Update
My goodness. What a night. We wish we could say we managed to get some sleep, but truth be told, we just wandered back in, having spent the last eight hours or so partying at Prince's new mansion—a stunning, 48-room villa he had constructed out of a rare purple travertine found only in Madagascar, which the Demonschlonged One had air-lifted and dropped at its current address of 3121 Mulholland Dr. Apparently, the glitter had yet to fully settle before a minor Oscars controversy erupted: You'll recall when Scott Rudin, whom viewers might have recognized from the classic Goya portrait "Producer Devouring One of His Assistants," closed his Best Picture acceptance speech with a special mention to "my partner, John Barlow. Without you, honey, this is just hardware." His spouse appeared nowhere on the screen—we pictured much mayhem in the control booth, with Gil Cates barking into a headset at a camera operator, "Not Travolta, you fool! Barlow! Check the legend! CHECK THE—oh never mind,"—but it was a tender moment nonetheless. Good As You now notices that the mention has been stricken from the official Academy transcript:
[C]heck out this official press transcript from the Oscars website and see how they chose to present Rudin's words:
UPDATE: The missing text has appeared!
CATEGORY: BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR SPEECH BY: SCOTT RUDIN, ETHAN COEN AND JOEL COEN FILM: "NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN"
======BEGIN TRANSCRIPTION======
Scott Rudin:
This is an unbelievable honor and a complete surprise. [...]I want to thank my friend, Sydney Pollack, who taught me that with the responsibility — with the opportunity to make movies comes the responsibility of making them good. This for him.
======END TRANSCRIPTION======
We'd be disheartened to think that a sweet declaration of superproducerly love for Rudin's loyal partner—always available to dispose of scores of assistants who "didn't work out," no questions asked—would be deemed inappropriate content by the Academy historians. We'll therefore chalk this one up to human error, and not to a small army of Sid Ganis-led standard and practices wonks, black Sharpies at the ready should a winner's acceptance speech give off even the faintest scent of fruitiness during Hollywood's most hallowed and rigorously heterosexual awards sacrament.
UPDATE: The transcript now contains the Barlow mention:
All is right with the Gays and the Oscars!
