During her Oscars monologue, host Ellen DeGeneres made reference to that kind of thinking with a joke about how the evening might go: “Possibility number one: ’12 Years a Slave’ wins Best Picture. Possibility number two: You’re all racists.”
In the lead up to the 86th annual Academy Awards, one prevalent meme was that some Oscar voters simply didn’t want to watch “12 Years a Slave.” As it turns out, that was true: at least two anonymous members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences apparently never saw Steve McQueen’s eventual Best Picture winner, this despite placing the film atop their Oscar ballots.
The surprising revelation comes via the Los Angeles Times: “All the same, two Oscar voters privately admitted that they didn’t see ’12 Years a Slave,’ thinking it would be upsetting. But they said they voted for it anyway because, given the film’s social relevance, they felt obligated to do so.”
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