A (0:00)

For almost a century, the Oscars have sold themselves as a glittering ritual, where Hollywood gathers to honor its finest. The Academy's mission sounds noble. To recognise and uphold excellence in the motion picture arts and sciences, inspire imagination and connect the world through the medium of motion pictures. That is the public story. And it is a far cry from its inception, which starts with murder investigations splashed across front pages, federal censorship looming in Washington and studio execs terrified of unions betting that flattery just might work. The gold statues came later. So let's investigate how it actually started. In the early 1920s, Hollywood had a problem. Lurid scandal. The industry was rocked by high profile moral crises. The Fatty Arbuckle scandal was one of the most explosive of these. So Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle was one of the biggest silent film comedians in America, a box office giant and a mentor to buster Keaton. In 1921, during a party at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, actress and model Virginia Rappe became violently ill and later died from a ruptured bladder. Arbuckle was accused of sexually assaulting her and causing her death. The case triggered three trials. The first two ended in hung juries and the third acquitted him completely. But by then, the damage was irreversible. Newspapers led by William Randolph Hearst ran shocking headlines portraying Hollywood as depraved and morally rotten. Arbuckle's films were pulled from circulation. To much of America, Hollywood now looked decadent, corruption and frankly, out of control. Arguably, just as damaging was the murder of prominent film director William Desmond Taylor. In 1922, Taylor was found shot dead in his Los Angeles bungalow. The case was never solved, but it exposed this web of drugs, alleged intimate relationships, hidden private lives involving young actresses like Mary Miles Minter and Mabel Normand. The press portrayed Hollywood as riddled with vice and moral corruption. Studios feared something even worse than bad press too. Washington stepping in and regulating the industry directly. In the early 1920s, dozens of US states already had their own censorship boards cutting scenes that they considered immoral, like characters getting away with adultery or crime. Prostitution, interracial relationships or heavy kissing perished at the thought. There were growing calls in Congress for federal oversight of movies nationwide. If the government imposed mandatory censorship, studios could lose control over scripts, themes of movies, distribution and ultimately profits. So the studios moved first. In 1922, they created the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America and hired Will Hayes, a former US Postmaster General with strong political connections, to clean up Hollywood's image. Under Hayes, the industry adopted a system of self censorship that evolved into the Production Code, which is often Called the Hays Code, you might have heard of it. And it set strict rules about what could and could not appear on screen. From sex to crime to religion. Hollywood would regulate itself publicly, promise high moral standards and avoid federal intervention. Amusingly, these codes would continue for decades. Under them, kissing was formally limited to just 3, 3 seconds in the 1930s. But creatives get creative. Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock famously worked around this rule in his 1946 film Notorious by having Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, who were doing a make out scene, break every three seconds to nuzzle whisper, therefore creating a compliant kissing scene of over two minutes. But back to the 1920s, because another threat was emerging. Not a moral one this time, an economic one. In 1926, Louis B. Mayer, the powerful studio head of Metro Goldwyn Mayer, was thinking about expansion. He was doing well for himself, building a beach house in Santa Monica. Hollywood was booming. Profits were rising, but so were labour tensions. Behind the glamour of films, there were of course, technical crews, carpenters, electricians, set builders and stagehands. They were organising under the International alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, a real and growing union. Technical workers were securing collective bargaining rights, meaning that they could demand higher wages, safer conditions and fixed hours. That meant higher production costs for the studios. The worry for the executives was if the crew unionized successfully, what would stop actors, writers and directors from doing the same? Unlike stagehands, stars were the public face of the industry. If they unionized, they could demand long term contracts, profit participation and creative control. For studio heads like Mayer, that threatened the entire power structure of Hollywood executives building their empires. The last thing they wanted was organized labour cutting into margins. So Mayer came up with a solution. In 1927, he founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Outwardly, it was a body to promote the arts and sciences, to elevate standards and mediate disputes. But in reality, it was a pressure valve, a way to pacify talent before they unionize. And Mayer later admitted this brazenly. He said, I found that the best way to handle movie makers was to hang medals to all over them. If I got them cups and awards, they'd kill themselves to produce what I wanted. That's why the Academy Award was created. The Academy was designed to improve Hollywood's image and keep talent under control by appealing to their vanity. And as someone who works in the media industry, I just can't imagine that ever working, can you? The Academy was structured carefully, invitation only, from the beginning, curated. If you convince actors and writers they are artists, elevated and exceptional, you separate them from laborers. No solidarity. The Ceremony itself resembled a professional organisation's annual banquet. Formal dress, speeches. It served two purposes at keep the workforce in check and rehabilitate Hollywood's reputation. Strip away everything you know and associate with the Oscars. That's what the first ceremony was like. No red carpet, no live broadcast, no suspense. On 16 May 1929, fewer than 300 guests gathered in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. They ate broiled chicken on toast, salt, string beans and ice cream. Not all at once, obviously. The Los Angeles Times had already published the winners three months earlier, so there was nothing to reveal. The ceremony lasted about 15 minutes. Douglas Fairbanks hosted and 15 gold plated statuettes were handed out. There were 12 categories. Outstanding Picture went to Wings, which was an American film about two World War I pilots who are in love with the same woman and they become best friends while fighting in France. Unique and artistic Picture went to sunrise. A Song of Two Humans, which tells the story of a man who plots to drown his wife under the seductive spell of another woman. Because us women are very dangerous creatures, the producers wanted the event to feel distinguished. Industry professionals in their glad rags gathered in a respectable hotel celebrating artistic achievement. Not a depraved industry, a cultured one. And that spectacle would build over the years, but for now, some broiled chicken and medals would have to do. At the same time, the Academy positioned itself as a mediator between management and talent. When actors attempted to organise through actors Equity In 1929, the Academy negotiated baseline contracts and grievance procedures, so it slowed momentum. When screenwriters pushed for credit and compensation, the Academy intervened again and it worked, but only briefly. Then the Great depression hit in October 1929 and studios demanded 50% pay cuts. Executives were excluded and the Academy sided with management, trust collapsed. By 1933, the Screenwriters Guild was being revived in secret. The Screen Actors Guild followed. Both encouraged their members to resign from the academy before the 1936 Oscars. Guild called for a boycott and at least one winner publicly refused. In solidarity, a writer called Dudley Nichols, who won for the informer. By 1937, the academy withdrew from direct labour negotiations because they knew their original strategy had failed because unionization was happening anyway. However, the Oscars survived. They just failed in part of their mission. The Oscar statue itself is revealing. Officially it is called the Academy Award of Merit. Thirteen and a half inches tall, eight and a half pounds, gold plated bronze on a black base. I feel like I'm on the shopping channel. It's an art deco knight holding a sword standing atop a film reel and the five spokes represent the Academy's original branches, which were actors, writers, directors, producers and technicians. The crusader sword is often interpreted as symbolising the industry's defence of its art. The design was sketched by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons and then sculpted by George Stanley. And it's barely changed. Except during World War II, due to metal shortages, Oscars were made of painted plaster. For three years after the war, winners could exchange them for gold plated versions. The nickname the Oscar wasn't officially adopted until 1939, but by 1934 it was widely used and nobody knows exactly why. One theory claims that Academy librarian and later executive director Margaret Herrick said it looked like her uncle Oscar. Except according to Reader's Digest, there aren't many sources on this. No such uncle appears to have ever existed. Bette Davis claimed that she coined the sobriquet because the statuette's rear end resembled her husband, harmon Oscar Nelson Jr. Getting out of the shower. But again, newspapers used the name before her win, so probably not the real origin either. Columnist Sidney Skolsky said that he invented it under deadline pressure, except the term had appeared earlier than his article, so there is no definitive origin. What's your theory and does this make you see the Oscars any differently? Let me know in the comments and I will see you next time.