Hold a real Oscar in your hand once in your life – that is a dream that many cinema lovers can certainly understand. Since I write a lot about films but don’t make any myself, the chances of fulfilling this wish have so far been slim. After all, I don’t personally know any Oscar winners whose trophy I could “just touch briefly”. Recently, I unexpectedly had the pleasure of putting my hands on real Academy Award gold… only the experience ended differently than expected.
I’ve had the film dream of an Oscar encounter for a long time
Since I was 13 years old, I watch the Oscars every year. The 2025 nominations have just been announced. In just a few weeks, the prestigious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences prize will once again sparkle slim and golden on the screen. At least one prize winner always notes on stage how surprisingly much the statue weighs. Matching the sword that the Oscar figure holds, winning this award represents an accolade in the film business.
For my private Oscar prediction game with friends, I have already “replicated” the golden boy several times in order to then award it myself. So I know exactly what an Academy Award looks like from pictures. Even if the self-created imitations are of course only a weak imitation of the infinitely distant Prize statue in Los Angeles come along. The closest I came to fulfilling my Oscar wish was a few years ago while vacationing in Hollywood, where souvenir shops sold little plastic copies of the award on every street corner – but of course that wasn’t the same either.
I got my next opportunity at the end of October 2024 when I was allowed to travel to Burbank, California (north of Los Angeles) for Moviepilot. For Moana 2 I went behind the scenes at Disney Animation Studios. During the tour of the building we were also shown the Disney trophies: Behind a plexiglass pane In the basement I was only a hand’s length away from the gold statues of Frozen, Encanto and Co.
It was like pressing my nose against the window of a closed ice cream parlor. But I didn’t expect that people would just hand guests an Oscar statue like that. But I was wrong.
There it is: The Oscar finds its way into my fingers
As my day at Disney came to an end, I had learned a lot about the making of a modern animated film. Finally, the small group of journalists, to which I belonged, were led across the extensive studio grounds. After all sorts of interesting anecdotes, our guide Drew showed us the Disney archives at the end. In the middle of the library he suddenly conjured up a velvet sack and took out – you guessed it – a real Oscar out.
When asked who would like to hold an Academy Award, my hand shot up faster than it ever did in high school. We lined up like lemmings for a photo with the statue. Under strict supervisionso that no one ran away with the statue covered in real gold or even dropped it (“Please always hold it with both hands!”), my film dream came true.
My first thought was: “The Oscar is actually as hard as everyone says!“Almost four kilos were pulling on my forearms and I couldn’t help but wonder whether some of the award winners might also be using the trophy for weight lifting. The golden surface was smooth and cool in my hand. The statue was only narrow enough at the legs , to clasp it with my whole fist. Besides, I didn’t expect how shiny, almost magicalthe gold caught and reflected the light.
All too quickly I had to pass the prize on to the next person willing to take a photo. But in the end I cheated myself another follow-upbecause I was the first in line to only take photos of myself with Oscar and wanted to take additional close-ups – which I was granted. So I was able to start the long journey home at the end of the day feeling full of spirit.
Welcome to the White Wilderness, or: Is a controversial Oscar worth less?
I only experienced my personal Oscar twist later, when I fell into bed after the 16-hour journey back and only had enough strength again to research the following day. which Academy Award I actually held had.
At the Disney studios, I made a quick note of the documentary on the front of the Oscar plaque, White Wilderness, as I passed by. At home in Germany, I finally got around to looking up the unknown work in detail – with surprising results. Because apparently I had one of them here most infamous Oscars in Disney history held.
White Wilderness: A Disney Oscar with a dark story
The nature documentary White wilderness by James Algar in 1958 illuminated animal life in the Arctic – including polar bears, walruses and wolverines. However, the film later fell into disrepute – among other things due to the spread of the (false) idea that Lemmings mass suicide by cliff jumping commit.
As Hyperallergic, among others, breaks down, should Many scenes in the documentary were faked at the time Cameraman Bill Carrick later said that the film crew paid children to capture lemmings and then transport them to the filming location in Alberta (where the animals are not native). Disoriented on rotating plates, the lemmings fled in all directions and were then thrown into the abyss. The killing was subsequent portrayed as a natural suicide.
Even though, according to Snopes, overpopulated lemming regions occasionally cause food shortages and animals can lose their lives in this search for a new habitat, these are accidents and not suicidal instincts. In addition, as shown in the documentary, lemmings do not consider the sea to be a lake that they want to overcome during their migration and therefore drown.
The Oscar-winning film White Wilderness unsurprisingly had a bad reputation after these revelations about its making. Cameraman James R. Simon is said to have been responsible for the dark chapter, while Disney was responsible for the
Animal cruelty neither knew nor wanted to commission it. To this day, the documentary about the scandal has been searched in vain on Disney+. Of course, you can still find and watch them in the depths of the Internet – which I did, because after my fingers touched the tainted Oscar gold, my morbid curiosity was inevitably piqued.
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My subsequent film conclusion: White Wilderness actually seems like one of many Disney animal documentaries. But with the background knowledge of lemming murders and polar bear cubs falling down snowy slopes in the studio, the experience inevitably has a bitter aftertaste. Which led me back to the internal conflict of how I should now deal with my Oscar wish being fulfilled.
Dark Oscar awakening – now what?
Should I have refrained from doing my research and enjoyed my Oscar experience unhindered? The unpleasant additional knowledge at least clarified the question of why I was allowed to hold the Academy Award as a visitor: If I had a lot of Oscars, I would only give the most unnecessary one into someone else’s hands. The trophy itself is of course the same in weight and appearance, regardless of which film title is emblazoned on the front.
Several months after waking up from my Oscar dream, I come to a conclusion that brings at least a certain, tongue-in-cheek satisfaction: Many before me have hoisted an Oscar – but Who can claim to have held an infamous Oscar?