Oscar’s close-up: producing the live television broadcast of the 25th academy awards

Abstract

This article examines the industrial, technological and performative work that went into the production of the first live television broadcast of the Academy Awards on 19 March 1953 in order to place the broadcast within a broader history of live event broadcasting and contemporary American discourses around liveness. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences only decided to televise the event in early February 1953, and the ensuing month and a half was spent learning how to communicate the ‘glamour’ and ‘majesty’ of Hollywood to home audiences while simultaneously assuaging the concerns of a film industry fearful that its stars could be embarrassed by the supposed spontaneity and intimacy that live television afforded. Grounding my inquiry in textual analysis and archival research, I argue that the tension, anxiety and ambivalence that marked the film industry’s relationship to television in 1953 were internal and intrinsic to the broadcast and were constantly managed and negotiated, with varying degrees of success, through the planning, promotion and production of the event.