Should Acceptance Speeches Reflect the Achievements They're Honored For?
How an Oscar winner accepts their award often becomes just as imprinted in the minds of movie fans as the performance or project itself. Roberto Benigni memorably leapt over chairs to gleefully accept his Oscar for Life is Beautiful, a questionable move given the fact that he was being honored for a Holocaust movie (even if it was a lighter one than virtually all over films of its genre). James Cameron shouted “I’m the king of the world!” when claiming his Best Director prize for Titanic, which was famously just a quote from his own film but which likely sounded considerably cockier than he meant to.
Now, there's no rule that says that an Oscar winner needs to match the tone of what their prize is meant to reward. Many winners – even actors accustomed to public performance – don’t deliver particularly put-together speeches, and the shock factor can affect composure and coherence. Nevertheless, here’s a look at this year’s telecast speeches in terms of how well they reflected the achievement they were being honored for...