Planning the Oscars must be a freaking nightmare. And this year, the Academy has an extra headache on its hands: Banksy. Since the world’s most famous street artist is nominated in the documentary category for Exit Through the Gift Shop, there’s a chance he’ll show up at the ceremony — or skip the ceremony and orchestrate some kind of crazy stunt from afar. As TheWrap reports, this uncertainty has some Academy execs worried.
“The fun but disquieting scenario,” said Bruce Davis, the Academy’s executive director, “is if that film wins and five guys in monkey masks come to the stage all saying, ‘I’m Banksy!’ Who the hell do we give it to?” He stressed that the Academy “needs to have a procedure in place” to deal with what will happen if Exit wins.
Academy president Tom Sherak, who’s been strategizing with the film’s producer, Jaimie D’Cruz, hopes Banksy will elect not to show up to the ceremony at all. “We suggested to them that it might be a good idea that if he did win, one of [the producers] would accept in his place – that it would not be dignified for the Academy to have somebody come up wearing a monkey’s head,” Sherak said.
Now, we understand the fear of masked men rushing an Oscar stage. But for our money, it sounds like some suspense over what Banksy might do would be good publicity for everyone involved.