Will Smith Isn’t the Only Oscars Mess the Academy Needs to Clean Up

thewrap.com:

Do Academy CEO Dawn Hudson and President David Rubin need to be held responsible?Oscar show producer Will Packer may have told Smith that Chris Rock wanted him to stay, but that was neither Packer nor Rock’s call (and anyway, Rock’s camp says he didn’t say anything beyond his desire not to file a police report).

Hudson and Rubin were in the Dolby Theatre and could have acted far more decisively than they did when they reportedly raised the issue of Smith leaving with the actor’s publicist rather than with the star directly.

And then there was the matter of the conflicting stories that came out in the days after the incident, and the video meeting that Rubin and Hudson had with Smith the day before the initial governors board meeting.The final Academy statement took responsibility for not acting quickly or decisively enough, but it also tried to soften that responsibility by saying the organization was “unprepared for the unprecedented.” (You could say the same about the Academy’s accountants when they messed up the Best Picture envelope five years ago, but they still had to take the fall.) As much as the board members want to put the slap in the rearview member, demanding some accountability could be a stronger ending.The tricky thing is that Academy presidents only serve one-year terms that expire in August, so Rubin only has a couple of months left.

In addition, term limits will force Rubin off the Board of Governors this summer (along with a record 10 other incumbent governors who are falling prey to tightened term limits.) He’ll will be out of office soon and cannot run for re-election.As for Hudson, she has announced that she will not seek another term after her contract expires in May 2023, but that leaves a full.