A data analysis of speeches at the Oscars

Some see the Oscars as the pinnacle of artistic achievement, a night of cinematic excellence that honours the best of the best. Others view it a TV reality show in which over-paid and over-dressed frenemies hand arbitrary awards to each other for incomparably subjective artistic performances. Whatever your view, there is no doubt that what we see and hear on stage reveals a lot about how Hollywood operates. During the rise of the #MeToo movement, it was frequently claimed that Harvey Weinstein was thanked more often than God at the Oscars. This claim reflected his power and dominance, but it also highlighted the sycophantic fawning that is often required in a semi-closed industry of narcissistic egomaniacs. But is it true? To answer this, I crunched the data on 1,884 speeches given by winners at the Oscars. Thank you for coming to my TED talk Oscars speech The Academy Awards have evolved from a private event held in a ballroom to a globally televised spectacle. So it’s perhaps n ... Read full article.