Oscars 2017 pull a Steve Harvey; incorrectly announce La La Land Best Picture instead of Moonlight

The Oscars 2017 incorrectly named La La Land as Best Picture instead of Moonlight, pulling off a Steve Harvey faux pas at the 89th Academy Awards.

By: Fukres |
February 28, 2017 12:28 am

The 89th Annual Academy Awards have done the unthinkable. Not only have they proven that this year’s Oscars are “not so white”, they did it in a way reminiscent of Steve Harvey’s Miss Universe 2015 mess up with announcing the name of the pageant winner. At Oscars 2017, it was announced that La La Land has won Best Picture, winning its seventh Oscar for the night. However, the error was quickly realised and the true winner, Moonlight, was announced minutes later.

The host for the night Jimmy Fallon expressed his sincere apologies for the faux pas at the 89th Academy Awards. (Courtesy: Reuters)

Awards show host Jimmy Fallon apologised for the embarrassing screw-up which seemed to be scripted. However, The Academy posted a tweet, which clearly declared La La Land as the winner. The tweet was quickly deleted and The Academy posted out a fresh tweet, quoting Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight as the winner. Doesn’t really seem like it was scripted now, does it? The Oscars faux pas has been attributed to presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

Both Moonlight and La La Land were the most prospective winners of the coveted Best Picture award. With Moonlight at 8 and La La Land at 14 nominations, both films were two of the best movies of 2016. While La La Land was more jovial and romantic, Moonlight spoke of persecution of blacks and LGBTQ+ communities. Different in their own sense, both films were exquisite and had a widely different fan-following.

And the Oscar goes to… pic.twitter.com/i846CnSDAi

— The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 27, 2017

The two movies were undeniably the Adele and Beyonce of the Oscars this year. So, it only seems befitting that the night comes to an end in such a glorious manner.

Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight emerged as the clear winner of Best Picture at Oscars 2017.

Back in 2015, Steve Harvey had called out the name of the first runner up of the Miss Universe Pageant, Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutiérrez and declared her the winner. A few minutes later, after Gutiérrez had already been crowned, he apologised and correctly announced Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach as the winner.