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'Avatar' Star Calls Out Oscar Boobs
April 13, 2010 – Avatar star Sigourney Weaver ripped the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science for giving the Best Director Oscar to the helmer of The Hurt Locker, which Weaver blames on voting by gender. The actress said the 6,000 Oscar voters picked Hurt Locker because it is directed by a woman – Kathryn Bigelow -- and they wanted to make Oscar history by selecting the first female recipient for that award, so they passed over Avatar’s Jim Cameron.
“Jim didn’t have breasts, and I think that was the reason,” Weaver told Brazilian news site Folha Online over the weekend, according to the New York Post. “He should have taken home that Oscar.”
Weaver’s explanation may lack eloquence, but it brings up a common complain. Academy voters favor edgy low-budget drama over big studio fare in any genre. "It’s a rare patch of Hollywood where moderately budgeted independent films can stand toe-to-toe with major studio releases, because voters tend to favor serious fare that is an indie staple," notes the second edition of Marketing to Moviegoers.
“In the past, Avatar would have won because they [Oscar voters] loved to hand out awards to big productions, like Ben-Hur,” Weaver said in the same interview. “Today it’s fashionable to give the Oscar to a small movie that nobody saw.”
Of course, Cameron and Avatar, which lost the Oscar Best Picture to the Hurt Locker too, has Hollywood’s biggest consolation prize. The sci-fi epic is Hollywood’s top grossing film of all time with nearly $744 million in domestic box office. Meanwhile, bomb-squad drama Hurt Locker has just $16.4 million in box office.
Bigelow gets her own consolation prize. She is Cameron’s ex-wife so she beat out her Ex in the Oscars.
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