The Oscar for Prudence

from the column of writer Orson Scott Card:

Favorite train-wreck moment: When "Music by Prudence" won, director Roger Ross Williams was interrupted by a woman who followed him up to the stage and interrupted him, saying, "Let the woman talk."

This was, of course, a white woman interrupting a black director of a documentary about handicapped musicians in Africa. So apparently black men filming about handicapped musicians in Africa are "the oppressor" while white women are the universal victims.

When you learn the real story, her interruption becomes even more ludicrous. This woman got a producer credit because she was the "finder" -- that is, she told the people who actually funded and made the film about the group of handicapped musicians.

And then, having contributed neither talent, nor labor, nor money, she got angry because they (correctly) focused on one musician in particular (essential for telling a coherent story) instead of trying to tell, in a few minutes, the story of the whole group.

The director, who flew to Africa at his own expense to learn about the people and plan the project, stood there in the face of her incredible rudeness, looking puzzled and appalled, while she stole from him the moment of glory that he had worked for and earned (and she had not, since her version of the short was not made and therefore did not receive an Oscar)....