And the Oscar for Best Advocate Goes To ...

Patricia Arquette may be the lowest paid Oscar winner this year — she played her role over the 12 years covered in real-time by "Boyhood" and says her babysitter and dog walker earned more during the filming that she did as one of the film's stars.

So who better to advocate for equal pay at the annual Academy Awards telecast which, even on a bad night (this year hit a seven-year ratings low) reaches 36 millions viewers, live?

Arquette's acceptance speech was the first overtly "political" moment of last night's telecast, and as it did veteran Variety reporter Brian Lowery, it jarred me from my zombie-like semi-attentive state. Finally, I said to myself, a little controversy.

It's a time honored tradition at the Oscars. In any given year some winners will spend some of their precious acceptance speech time advocating for a pet cause. These unscripted pleas, rants or screeds (depending on your point of view) are the only reliable portions of the nearly-four-hour program, which is heavy on self-adulation and jokes which are either bad or bad for the room or both.

These are high-stakes personal branding opportunities. How one is able to take a position might dictate whether one should. Aiming high and missing can be worse that taking no shot at all. And when taking a shot one has to be very careful that it doesn't ricochet back.

So what can we learn from the "masters?"

It's tricky. Arquette's on-stage remarks, and her backstage amplifications, drew plenty of support from people already on the record advocating for pay equality. As a woman speaking about gender pay inequity in an industry whose disparity is hard to dispute, Arquette has skin in the game. But she also managed to alienate some natural allies by allowing them to suggest she was a bit tone deaf, losing the moral high ground which every advocate much occupy.

John Legend, winner for the Original Song, "Glory" (Selma), also spoke to a personally relatable issue: The number of black men in prison. His observation involved a little known stat — "There are more black men under correctional control today than there were under slavery in 1850" — and, by contrast, was widely lauded. Was that because, unlike Arquette's issue, it was more in context — close to the theme of the movie for which he was being honored — or only because he committed no unforced errors?

Two other winners advocated for the illnesses they portrayed: Julianne Moore (Best Actress, Still Alice) for Alzheimer's and Eddie Redmayne (Best Actor, The Theory of Everything) for ALS, the disease that has slowed but not stopped the scientist he portrayed, Steven Hawking.

Not to be crass, but that's pretty safe territory. As is advocating for greater sensitivity towards people at high risk for suicide, the heartfelt message from Moore and Dana Perry (Best Documentary Short Subject, Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1). It's difficult to fault this particular strain of opportunism, but it also doesn't seem to advance the discussion much, perhaps because it's obvious.

For me, the most resonant play came from the night's biggest winner. Almost as an afterthought, having already been on stage twice (Best Original Screenplay and Best Director, Birdman), Alejandro González I?árritu brought up Mexican politics and immigration when lucky three dealt him Best Picture as well.

"I want to dedicate this award (to) my fellow Mexicans — the ones who live in Mexico. I pray that we can find and build a government that we deserve," I?árritu said. "And the ones that live in this country who are part of the latest generation of immigrants ... I just pray that they can be treated with the same dignity and respect as the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation."

That, too, may change nothing. But it was spontaneous, passionate and clear. And, as a successful resident alien (if Sean Penn is to be believed) I?árritu had nothing in particular to lose or gain. He can lay the cleanest claim to thought leadership, and his serious turn was all the more acceptable since his playful sense of humor and self-deprecation was on full display during his first two acceptance speeches.

Oscar acceptance speech politicking, when it's remembered at all, seldom redounds to the benefit of the speaker, at least in the major categories. It's difficult to look past the ad hoc, one-percentish nature of such advocacy from elites in an elite business.

Sometimes it works. It was amid increasing awareness of the plight and history of Native Americans that Marlon Brando decided not to accept his 1972 Best Actor award for The Godfather. Instead, he sent actress Sacheen Littlefeather to "very regretfully" turn down the Oscar as as a protest of Hollywood’s portrayal of Native Americans in film.

Brando's stunt may have done nothing more than prompt the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to ban the practice of allowing proxies to accept Oscars. But, along with George C Scott's refusal to take part in the Oscars at all — once when he won, as Best Actor for Patton, these moments are remembered because they reject the proceedings at potentially significant professional risk.

How good are you at seizing the moment to advance an issue that maybe isn't the topic at hand? Can this ever be done without it seeming self-serving?