The event manager point of view

Ok, A LOT was spoken in the last few days about the #oscars2022 controversy. LinkedIn is a professional social media and therefore I would like for once to tackle the subject from this point of view. Allow me to give you my 2 cents as an #eventsmanager . Chris Rock in this situation is representing the middle management person, the one exposed with the final delivery. The one professional that represents onstage the backstage team, just like account managers, event managers, etc etc etc. In Portuguese we even have a saying for it: 'a pessoa que esta dando a cara para bater' - LITERALLY the person showing off their face to be 'hit'. Despite realising now how awful this saying of my native language is, my actual question is - did Chris Rock just showed up, grabbed a mic and started talking for the first time? NOOOOO! Anyone who worked in ANY major event will know how many rehearsals, approvals, readings and processes have to be in place for that one final moment of live tv. Who in the academy was responsible for this approval? Did anyone question him on how poor this joke was (and without deviating too much, soooo many poor jokes on gays, women's, races etc were already aired, maybe they do need a stronger signing-off process) before he said it live? So many questions here!

And after the slap happened, no processes then either? No security goes up the stage, no mic is cut (apparently in the US sound was cut for a few minutes), Will Smith is not invited to get out of the space, he can still go out and accept his award?

Am I the only one that felt a lack of #accountability on the event organisers here?

In Major Sports events, the situation in not perfect either. But, I will say that in general, we do have a chain of command, we (should) know who to escalate a problem to and there will be different teams in place - hence the importance of working so closely together! Mostly having done VVIP areas for exemple, there is no way that I have ever started a match without knowing where the security was and without talking with the broadcasting team about camera positions. They do their thing, I do mine - but it only works if we all work together aware of each other's moves.

Unfortunately, it would still be fair to say that even with (some) processes in place, and with higher management approval, most likely the middle manager / delivery person will take the final blame for any hiccups. Hence the Oscars situation made me reflect a lot on my responsibilities on site when I deliver an event. The importance of being aware of my actions and my values, to be sure that a 'wrong joke' doesn't pass me by without me understanding or reflecting. But if it does, (and again not defending or condoling any party), I hope I have at least the respect for myself to be as decent as Chris Rock was WITH HIS ROLE. He took a breath, and carried on his job.

I hope you reader get my point. I hope none of us professionals go through extreme situations like this. I hope we all deliver our events flawlessly despite SO MANY challenges. I hope we all get approvals and rehearsals from higher management that fall in line with our values. But if we don't, I hope we can all take a breath and carry on our jobs. (Like we always do!).

Dedicated to all my managers out there!

with love (for my colleagues, myself and for the job),

Renata

PS1: In case someone still needs my opinion: Violence IS NEVER the answer.

PS2: @academyofmotionpictureartsandsciences yes, I am available for hire!