To Avoid Another Will Smith Moment, the Oscars Set up a Crisis Team

With just a few days to the 2023 Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, the
Chief Executive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Bill Kramer revealed that the organisation has set up a Crisis Team to manage unexpected incidents during the awards show.

“We have a whole crisis team, something we’ve never had before, and many plans in place,” Kramer said in an interview with Time. “We’ve run many scenarios. So it is our hope that we will be prepared for anything that we may not anticipate right now but that we’re planning for just in case it does happen.”

Last year’s Oscars was marred by the actor and comedian Will Smith’s famous slap to his counterpart Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith. Although Smith has been banned from attending the awards show for a while, the implication of that moment was not lost to many
Explaining further, Kramer said that the crisis plans help to organise quickly.

“This is how we all come together. This is the spokesperson. This will be the statement. And obviously depending on the specifics of the crisis, and let’s hope something doesn’t happen and we never have to use these, but we already have frameworks in place that we can modify.”

This new team, according to Kramer, was responsible to address concerns around the surprise nomination of Andrea Riseborough, the ‘To Leslie’ actor whose Best Actress nomination raised a few eyebrows. One week after the nominations were released, the academy announced that Riseborough’s nomination will stand and the academy will work to refine and clarify the rules around awards campaigning.
The 95th Oscars is slated for March 12, 2023, and will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.