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The Academy Awards will be airing all of the categories presented at its Feb. 24 Oscars show live after it faced sharp criticism for a decision to present some awards during commercial breaks.
“The Academy has heard the feedback from its membership regarding the Oscar presentation of four awards,” the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said in a statement Friday, noting that all awards “will be presented without edits, in our traditional format.”
Academy officials had announced Monday that four award categories ― cinematography, makeup and hairstyling, film editing and live-action short ― would be presented during the show’s commercial breaks. Critics were swift to denounce the decision as discrediting the work of people behind the camera and giving less due to underrepresented voices, especially in the female-dominated category of makeup and hairstyling.
“They’re squeezing the one thing that you watch the show for,” director Steven Soderbergh told HuffPost earlier this week, “which is to see somebody’s fucking dream come true.”
By Wednesday, a long list of Hollywood stars ― including directors Alfonso Cuaron and Spike Lee, and actors Bradley Cooper and Glenn Close ― had signed an open letter asking the academy to reverse its decision not to air certain categories, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The academy has also provoked backlash over several other decisions for this year’s Oscars: It won’t have a host for the first time in 30 years after its initial pick, Kevin Hart, stepped down amid controversy over past homophobic comments. The academy also had to reverse a decision to introduce a new “popular film” category this year after facing a wave of criticism.
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