Will Smith flouncing onto the Dolby Theatre stage, winding up, and walloping host Chris Rock is a moment that will live in Oscar-night infamy, but it’s far from the most egregious episode in the ceremony’s 94-year history. This is an event, after all, that made nominee Hattie McDaniel sit at a segregated table, far from the rest of the Gone with the Wind cast, because she was Black, and had Seth MacFarlane do a song-and-dance to the tune “We Saw Your Boobs.” Its long, ignominious history of misfires could fill a 10-part Netflix docuseries. And twenty years ago, the Oscars reached its nadir.
On March 23, 2003, the Academy Awards celebrated its 75th anniversary at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Steve Martin hosted for the second time, the late Gil Cates served as producer, and Chicago led all films with 13 nominations. It was a night that saw a screen icon make history: Meryl Streep, with her 13th nod, became the most nominated actor ever.
One figure loomed large over the 2003 Oscars: Harvey Weinstein. The then-Miramax executive (and now twice-convicted rapist) was at the height of his awards-season powers, with his films receiving a total of 46 Oscar nominations, including a hand in four of the five Best Picture nominees: Gangs of New York, The Hours, Chicago, and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. While Weinstein’s involvement in the first three films was rather straightforward — he produced and distributed Scorsese’s Gangs, helped produce Stephen Daldry’s drama The Hours, and distributed Rob Marshall’s movie-musical Chicago — his executive producer credit and profit participation in the LOTR trilogy is more complex. It stems from the property first being developed at Miramax, where Weinstein notoriously pushed to combine all three volumes of Tolkien’s sprawling fantasy into one film, going as far as threatening to replace director Peter Jackson with Quentin Tarantino if he didn’t acquiesce.
Jackson ultimately won the battle. Weinstein (and his brother Bob) were given $10 million in turnaround fees and a slice of the backend to kick rocks. Jackson took his passion project to New Line, who backed his three-film vision. And the rest is history. As a final fuck you to Harvey, Jackson reportedly modeled one of the orcs after him.
Weinstein’s Chicago proved the night’s big winner, taking home six Oscars — including Best Picture. Frida, a biopic of the artist Frida Kahlo starring Salma Hayek (another one of Weinstein’s films), won two Oscars. Hayek would later pen an op-ed in The New York Times referring to Weinstein as “my monster,” alleging that he attempted to sabotage Frida because she repeatedly turned down his sexual advances. She even claimed that he told her, “I will kill you, don’t think I can’t,” and bullied her into performing a sex scene in the film with full-frontal nudity. (Weinstein has denied this.)
Over 80 women publicly came forward to accuse Weinstein of rape. A New York jury sentenced him to 23 years in prison, while a California jury gave him 16 years behind bars. But Weinstein’s odious presence is only a portion of what made the 2003 Oscars so vile.
When Michael Moore took home the Best Documentary Oscar for his gun violence film Bowling for Columbine, the outspoken leftist delivered a fiery speech denouncing then-President George W. Bush and his Iraq War. “We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons,” he bellowed. The crowd proceeded to loudly boo him off the stage, and their reaction prompted host Martin to crack, “The Teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo.” There was also Adrien Brody who, after becoming the youngest-ever Best Actor winner at 29 for The Pianist, grabbed and kissed presenter Halle Berry (she would later express her displeasure and confusion over the incident). That this was painted as the night’s feel-good moment speaks volumes.
And then there’s Roman Polanski. His film The Pianist, a biographical drama about Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman surviving the Holocaust, received seven Oscar nominations. All eyes, however, were on the Best Director prize — one that had thus far eluded Polanski, who’d fled the U.S. in 1978 after pleading guilty to “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” for the rape of a 13-year-old girl. (Polanski didn’t settle with his victim until 1997, six years prior to the Oscars.)
To present the Best Director Oscar, the Academy enlisted one of Hollywood’s biggest stars: Harrison Ford. Upon reading Polanski’s name, Ford grinned; the crowd roared with delight. The camera cut to the audience, as many — Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, and Harvey Weinstein among them — gave the disgraced filmmaker a standing ovation.
Six years later, Hollywood circulated a petition signed by over 100 actors, filmmakers, and producers from across the globe calling for the release of Polanski, who’d been detained in Switzerland. The signatories included Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Pedro Almodóvar, Darren Aronofsky, and Tilda Swinton.
In the wake of #MeToo, a number of other women accused Polanski of raping them when they were underage: Renate Langer, a German actress who alleged Polanski sexually assaulted her in Gstaad back in 1972, when she was 15; Marianne Barnard, an American artist who said Polanski raped her in 1975 when she was 10; and Valentine Monnier, a French actress who claimed Polanski raped her in Gstaad in 1975. (Polanski has denied these allegations.)
While promoting his film An Officer and a Spy in 2019, Polanski gave an interview to the French magazine Paris Match where he curiously blamed Weinstein for the renewed interest in his sexual-assault case, pointing to their rivalry at the 2003 Oscars.
“It was him who dug up my case… from 26 years before which no one was interested in anymore,” Polanski told the publication.
Well, the Oscars clearly didn’t give a damn.
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