Last year, the 92nd Academy Awards were held as usual, at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California, at the end of awards season in February, with Janelle Monáe opening the show to a packed house with not a single protective face mask in sight. About a month after the Oscars happened, the pandemic forced North America to go into lockdown mode, and it guaranteed this years’ 93rd Academy Awards would be nothing like last year’s ceremony. Well, except for all those people in the audience with maskless faces. According to Variety, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences won’t be forcing attendees to mask up this Sunday.
As we already know, the Oscars have a very strict no-Zoom policy for this year’s ceremony, which had some people raising an eyebrow and wondering if the show’s producers, Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher, had suddenly forgotten that we’re still in the middle of a global health pandemic. It’s not exactly made any better by sources saying that no one has to wear a mask if the camera is pointed at their face. However, if the camera isn’t focused on your visage, then go ahead and cover it up for your own protection. via Variety:
The Academy is not asking Oscar attendees to wear face masks while cameras are rolling during the live ceremony on April 25.
The news was announced on Monday morning during a Zoom meeting with Academy reps and nominees, and studio and personal publicists. Because the ceremony – being held at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles – is being treated as a TV/film production, masks are not required for people on camera, an Academy staffer explained.
However, when guests are not on camera, they are being asked to wear masks. For example, masks should be put on during commercial breaks.
There’s a lot of commercials that happen during the three to four hours of the Oscars, so I don’t know how good of an idea that is. Off, on, off, on, off, on. Not to mention that the show might not be as small and intimate as advertised. The audience capacity will allegedly be capped off at 170 people. UM. 170? As in, one hundred, PLUS seventy on top of that? And that’s not even to say we’re talking 170 total. That’s the number of people who are allowed in the audience at any given time. The Academy reportedly plans to rotate guests in and out of the audience as the show goes on.
And again, a whole lot of those 170 attendees won’t be wearing masks, should they so choose, and if they don’t happen to be on commercial break. But to me, masks sound like a good idea here. Especially when it comes to the speeches. You can usually count on a couple of quick n’ tight acceptance speeches, but it’s only a matter of time before someone goes up there all out of breath, gasping in wide-mouth shock, “OH MY GOD, WOW!” for upwards of four minutes. How long can airborne particles hang in the air? Is the distance from the mic to the first row at least six feet? I’m sure they’ll figure it out by Sunday.
Pic: YouTube
