Lessons from the Epic Fail at the Oscars

"We sincerely apologize to 'Moonlight', 'La La Land', Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture", the firm made in a statement. "The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred."   Price Waterhouse Coopers, the official accountant of the Oscars.    L.A. Times

What could possibly be worse than Steve Harvey announcing during Miss Universe 2016 the runner-up as the winner of the contest?  Could any mistake in such a public forum be any worse than that?  Announcing the wrong Best Picture would be much worse.

By now you have seen or heard what happened.  Warren Beatty opened the official envelope for Best Picture, "took a long look at it", according to his testimony, and handed it to Faye Dunaway who announced "The Oscar goes to 'La La Land."  She didn't read it wrong. That's what the card said.  Well, there is the matter that Emma Stone's name was on the card for Best Picture, but what would most people do in that situation? Would you in a split second question the accuracy of the information handed to you in front of hundreds of millions of viewers around the world? She announced 'La La Land' when the actual winner was 'Moonlight'.  Fred Berger, 'La La Land's' producer, who was standing on stage as the apparent winner, then held up the correct card and stated that 'Moonlight' was the actual winner.

In my opinion there are three ways to deal with a mistake. 1. Own the mistake. Admit that you screwed up.  2. Make amends, if possible. 3.Learn from the mistake so that it doesn't happen again. 4.Move on.  Price Waterhouse Cooper did these things;  they said that they made a mistake.  And who knows how they can possibly make amends.  Calls will be made. Letters will be written. Attorneys will be talking. Heads will roll.  I'm quite sure that they will learn from the mistake. This had never happened before and more than likely it will never happen again. It would have been bad enough if it had happened with the "Best Short Foreign Film" or "Best Sound Editing," but it happened with the crown jewel of the evening with Best Picture. Unthinkable.

Whereas, in their statement the accountants took ownership of the mistake, I think they could have said it better.  And with your next mistake, I suggest that you do the same thing. They stated the mistake in 3rd person instead of 1st person.  With first person you are telling your own story with "I" and "we". The  writer is telling the story from his own point of view.  3rd person is like a camera recording events. The camera shows what  happened, but is not personally involved with the story. They could have said, "We apologize for the error that we made" instead of "We apologize for the error that was made."  They could have said, "We gave the presenters the wrong category envelope" instead of "The presenters had been given the wrong category envelope". This sounds like some mystery person made the mistake and gave them the wrong envelope.

There is one important thing to remember when dealing with a mistake. Make sure you made the mistake.  Faye Dunaway was surely embarrassed by what happened and probably feels badly about it, but did she do anything wrong?  Warren Beatty tried to cover for Dunaway, but was it his mistake?  Does he owe anyone an apology?  He just handed Dunaway the card that they handed to him. In my opinion the only mistake he made was owning a mistake in front of hundreds of millions of viewers that he didn't make.

Don't we do the same thing?  We feel bad for hours or days about something we didn't do. Before we feel bad about it, we need to make sure it's ours to feel bad about. And even if it's our mistake, after we feel bad about it a little while we need to make amends, forget it and move on. Well,  okay, even if we can't forget about it, we need to move on. It's not easy to do this, but it's necessary.

Not everyone feels bad about what happened last night.  I would say that today Steve Harvey is the happiest man in the world.  For over a year he has been the brunt of jokes on Late Night and around the world.  He is  no longer the owner  of "the biggest goof ever made on international live television." Can you imagine what Late Night is going to do with this? But as big as the mistake was and as many people as it affected, next year there will be another Academy Awards. The "beautiful people" will dress up and walk the red carpet. Jokes will be made. Awards will be presented. The show will go on.

When I make a mistake, I ask myself two questions 1. "Will anyone die?"  and 2. "Will I go to prison?" Since the answer to both questions is "no" I immediately feel somewhat better.  But even though neither is the case, I still feel bad that I messed up. I feel bad that my mistake affected other people.  At that point I own up to it, apologize as necessary, learn what I can and move on. Human beings make mistakes. I'm a human being. I make mistakes. You are a human being. You make mistakes.

And when we see such a colossal mistake on so large a stage by people who are much richer and much smarter than we are, if we're honest don't we feel a little bit better about ourselves?  So now I can ask myself three questions, 1. "Will anyone die"? 2. "Will I go to prison?" and 3. "Is this worse than announcing the wrong Best Picture at the Academy Awards?" Druggists tell us that Tamiflu reduces symptoms by about twenty-four hours.  This goof last night should reduce my symptom by several hours as well.  Even if we don't learn from our  own mistakes, someone else will.