Click to select a new term
Source: The Academy of motion pictures and science,
acceptance speech database
MADE WITH LOVE BY
Percentage of "I Love You"
directed to friends and family:
100%
25%
75%
50%
1980
2010
2000
1980
2000
1960
YEAR
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sally some likes
You really
like me!
2011-2017
2006-2010
1955-1959
1960-1964
1965-1969
1970-1974
1975-1980
1981-1985
1986-1990
1996-2000
1991-1995
2001-2005
1950-1954
29 words
104 words
41 words
129 words
44 words
139 words
101 words
37 words
132 words
66.5 words
150 words
118 words
174 words
median number of words in oscars
acceptance speeches:
"I love You"
"Ladies and gentlemen"
"Thank you very"
Mentioning family **
"I love You"
"Ladies and gentlemen"
"Thank you very"
Mentioning family **
*The Academy database contains too few speeches before 1950 to be representative.
** includes "child", "children", "wife", "husband"
percentage of speeches with selected terms:
80%
70%
30%
60%
20%
50%
10%
40%
0
1960
1980
2000
YEAR
“Ladies and gentlemen, please forgive me if my words are inadequate in thanking you for your very great kindness. If I were to mention all those who have shown me such wonderful generosity through Gone with the Wind I should have to entertain you with an oration as long as Gone with the Wind itself. So if I may, I should like to devote my thanks on this occasion to that composite figure of energy, courage, and very great kindness, in whom all points of Gone with the Wind meet — Mr. David Selznick.”
Leigh’s is the first that appears in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences database of every Oscars speech dating back to 1939, the 12th Academy Awards, and the first that were recorded. Her delivery—genteel lace, as brief as it was deferential—was the standard for the next three decades.
And then, the ‘70s. Something changed, so resolutely and definitively that the very fact that the change came at the sunset of the 1960s and the dawn of the Me Decade almost feels like historical cliche.
Figures
of Speech
Words by Andrew Thompson
Design by Tri Vo
Crunching the numbers on 70 years of Oscars speeches demonstrates they’re the lengthy, effusive, self-important soliloquies we know them to be.
Here’s hoping for a return to graceful brevity. Jiri Menzel, a Czech director, accepted the award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1967. His speech was nothing more than the following: “I am very happy that Americans like Czech film. Thank you.” No, Jiri, thank you.
Suddenly, self-expression usurped dignity, the lugubrious pushed aside the stoic, and Vivien Leigh’s demure “Ladies and gentleman” drowned beneath the volume of Sally Field, who, overcome by the ecstasy of self-actualization, sobbed “You like me! You really like me!” on live television and became the archetype of Oscars excess.
Actors, once reserved, now brimmed with warmth. But for whom? The first “I love you” uttered at the Oscars (at least, going back to the 12th Awards) was Frank Sinatra accepting the award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in From Here to Eternity. “But I love you, though,” he said to no one in particular. “Thank you very much. I’m absolutely thrilled.” “You,” in Sinatra’s mouth, was quite literally you, as in you who is reading this article right now, you whoever was present at the awards, anyone who had any role in vaulting Sinatra to the podium of film’s most prestigious ceremony, be they cast, crew, academy member or film viewer.
The outward turned inward, and as the 1970s wore on, awardees were positively aglow. The objects of affection shifted, from the general “you” to you “my wife”, “my child”, my immediate nucleus. Speeches dragged on into the hundreds or thousands of words, performances unto themselves with awardees having private, tender conversations with their families.
In 1939, Vivien Leigh won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Gone With the Wind as the narcissistic Scarlett O’Hara. In accepting the award, Leigh was anything but:
