Academy Awards changes rules around social media after this year’s Oscars controversies

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has overhauled rules around campaigning for Oscars after incidents involving Andrea Riseborough, Jerry Bruckheimer and Michelle Yeoh

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced its “most significant overhaul” of rules around campaigning for Oscars, fresh after Andrea Riseborough’s controversial nomination for best actress.

The changes and clarifications come after several incidents were flagged as possibly breaking the rules around campaigning for nominations at this year’s Academy Awards. These included Riseborough’s nomination for her performance in To Leslie, after an aggressive guerrilla campaign that saw actors including Kate Winslet, Amy Adams and Gwyneth Paltrow endorse the low-budget indie film. The British actor had not been considered a contender for a nomination, with some suggesting her inclusion had come at the expense of Black actors.

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Oscars TV ratings improve – to third worst ever

This year’s Academy Awards with Jimmy Kimmel at the helm drew an average TV audience of 18.7m – and a bigger share of younger viewers

The audience for the 2023 Academy Awards broadcast improved substantially on last year’s unimpressive figures, with a 12% jump on what was the second worst ratings performance in history.

Early ratings from Nielsen, supplied to the Hollywood Reporter, said that the show on ABC attracted an average of 18.7m viewers, compared to 16.6m in 2022. The audience share in the key 18-49 age demographic also improved, from 3.76 last year to 4.0.

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Eyes roll at ‘cringey’ jokes amid Irish disappointment at Oscars haul

Ireland wins just two awards, for best special effects and best live-action short, after being nominated for 14

Ireland had hoped for Oscar glory but instead ended up the butt of jokes about drinking, fighting and incomprehensible accents as it claimed just a couple of the coveted golden statuettes.

Just two awards out of 14 nominations was disappointment enough but Hollywood added insult to injury with national tropes that elicited eye rolls in Ireland.

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Putin opponents and Russian liberals celebrate Navalny’s Oscar success

Director dedicates award to all political prisoners after film about Russian opposition leader wins best feature documentary

Russian liberals on Monday celebrated the Oscar win of Navalny, a documentary about the poisoning and imprisonment of the “hero” Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The film, which won best feature documentary at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, follows an investigation by Navalny’s team together with the Bellingcat group as they unmask FSB agents who were sent to poison Navalny in 2020. The Kremlin has always denied involvement.

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‘I was screaming’: Malaysia and Vietnam celebrate Oscars triumphs

Film fans in south-east Asia hail Everything Everywhere All at Once stars Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan

Cinema fans across south-east Asia have celebrated groundbreaking Oscar wins for the Malaysian film star Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, who was born in Vietnam.

Yeoh, the first person of south-east Asian descent to win the best actress award, for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, described her victory on Sunday night as “history in the making”.

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Indigenous group says company offering Australian land to Oscar nominees used its name and material without permission

Indigenous Carbon Industry Network says it has no connection with Pieces of Australia, which confirmed it has removed content that may have been inappropriately used

The company offering Oscar nominees “a symbolic souvenir” of land in outback Australia says it has removed material, including the name of an Indigenous organisation, from its marketing after being accused of using it without consent.

Pieces of Australia is one of a number of brands to pay $4,000 to secure a spot in the Oscars gift bag that is unaffiliated with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but sent by the company Distinctive Assets to the acting and directing nominees.

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Steven Spielberg says antisemitism today is ‘standing proud with hands on hips like Hitler’

The director, whose Oscar-nominated film The Fabelmans depicts the racial abuse he faced in the 60s, said he was very surprised by its current resurgence

Steven Spielberg has spoken out about his impression of the current levels of antisemitism in the US.

Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Spielberg was asked whether the abuse faced in 1960s California by the young Jewish hero of his new film, autobiographical drama The Fabelmans, was something he recognised today.

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Oscars to review ‘campaign procedures’ after Andrea Riseborough backlash

Film academy is implementing review after questions raised over last-minute celebrity-backed campaign in best actress category

The film academy has announced a review of “campaign procedures” in the wake of a backlash to this year’s Oscar nominations.

The British actor Andrea Riseborough gained a surprise best actress nod for her role in indie To Leslie after a grassroots campaign backed by A-listers including Kate Winslet, Jane Fonda, Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow and Amy Adams.

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