After the late, great Luke Perry was oddly snubbed from the In Memoriam segment at the 2020 Oscars ceremony, the Academy has officially responded to the expected backlash from his fans. Along with several other very notable names, Perry was controversially excluded from the televised segment, which pays tribute to some of the most beloved names in entertainment whom we’ve lost over the past year. Perry’s exclusion was especially surprising, as he was literally in one of the movies nominated for Best Picture that night; Perry played Wayne Maunder in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Clearly deserving of a spot in the Oscars’ In Memoriam segment, Perry’s omission was just as inexplicable as it is inexcusable. Naturally, the snub brought about a wave of backlash on social media from viewers of the show wondering how such an oversight could have happened. At this point, the criticism is impossible to ignore, and now the Academy has directly addressed the controversy with this official statement.
“The Academy receives hundreds of requests to include loved ones and industry colleagues in the Oscars In Memoriam segment. An executive committee representing every branch considers the list and makes selections for the telecast based on limited available time. All the submissions are included on Oscar.com and will remain on the site throughout the year. Luke Perry and Cameron Boyce are remembered in the Oscar.com gallery.”
In other words, the Academy is basically saying they can only include so many names in the limited time given to the In Memoriam segment, and they simply can’t include everyone. That’s a fair point, though it still seems an incredibly strange oversight to consciously omit an actor whose final movie was up for Best Picture at the very same show. Surely they could have found a couple of seconds elsewhere on the show to trim to give Perry the recognition on television he deserves. Still, with or without the nod at the Oscars, the fan response to the snub shows just how much he is loved.
Cameron Boyce was another name people were surprised to see missing from those honored in the In Memoriam segment. A Disney star, Boyce was best known for appearing in the Disney Channel series Jessie and starring in all three installments of the Descendants movie series. He also voiced Jake in the animated series Jake and the Never Land Pirates and appeared in the movies Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer and Grown Ups 2. Boyce died unexpectedly at the age of 20 in July of last year after suffering from an epileptic seizure.
Along with Perry and Boyce, House of 1000 Corpses star Sid Haig was also said to be deserving of a spot, considering his long-running career as a veteran actor. Comedian and actor Orson Bean, who died last week following an automobile accident in California, was also noticeably excluded. As we’ve seen, however, the fans of these entertainers will still fondly remember them whether they’re recognized at the Oscars or not. This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.
