And the Oscar Goes to… Climate Change?
The Oscars were held this past Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and were by all means nothing short of fantastic. The room was filled with excitement, joy, and anticipation on who would be winning the next Oscar. It wasn’t until the very end of the ceremony however, that there was one twist that caught everyone off guard.
The Academy Awards, or otherwise known as the Oscars, is one of the most highly anticipated events put on every year. Directors, actors, and others who work in the film industry come together and are recognized for the films produced in the previous year.
Some of the most popular films nominated for Oscars were The Martian, Mad Max Furry Road, and The Revenant, which all received awards in multiple categories. It was the best actor of the year award though that everyone was waiting for. In The Revenant, Leonardo DiCaprio put on a performance of a lifetime and made thousands of fans and fellow actors root for him to win his first Oscar. At the final moments of the award show this dream became reality and DiCaprio ended up winning his first Oscar after many years of being nominated but not winning.
As he said in an interview after the ceremony, “This has been my dream ever since I was 4 years old.”
It was clearly a heartfelt moment for the Hollywood star; however the speech he gave after receiving the award was somewhat un-expected. What made it different from the other speeches given that night was that he talked a lot about the realization of Climate Change, as well as awareness of problems that our world is facing today. Here is the video of his speech.
The big question here is why did he choose to bring up the topic of climate change in quite possibly the biggest moment of his life? The rest of the award recipients used their time to thank the academy, thank their families and thank other members of the cast and crew who helped with the movie. While DiCaprio did say thank you to these members at the beginning of his acceptance speech, he used the other half of his time to talk about the problems of climate change.
The argument on whether climate change is real has been in the news for years now, with the majority of people saying that it is happening today, while others say that it isn’t. DiCaprio in fact has been a strong supporter of the reality of climate change for some time now. In fact he DiCaprio has put up over $15 million to environmental causes, as well has recently visited the Pope to discuss his concerns on climate change.
As said in his speech, he gives a good example of this concern by explaining how the crew had to film in multiple locations just to find snow for the movie.
He says that, “Climate change is the most urgent threat facing our entire species.”
While Dicaprio still won his first Oscar, the statement he gave at the end of his speech may have instead hurt his reputation. According to Fox News, several people made negative statements about this on twitter.
Just like the twitter post above, some people are criticizing DiCaprio for using his time on stage for promoting his beliefs, instead of spending more time on talking about how he felt about the award.
Since it was almost a for sure win for DiCaprio, it seemed as though he had his whole speech planned out ahead of time, especially making sure to include the topic of climate change. Just like celebrities and athletes who get paid to be in advertisements to try and up-sell products, DiCaprio may have just given the biggest endorsement ever made to climate change.
