#NotMyBestPicture: Protests Erupt Nationwide After Moonlight Claims Best Picture at Oscars

Protests have already begun after Moonlight won the Oscar for best picture last night in a shocking victory at the Academy Awards.

Going into the ceremony, La La Land led the field with 14 Oscar nominations, tying All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997) for the most Oscar nominations in history.  News outlets from Business Insider to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight predicted a sure win for the film, some putting its odds of winning at 1 to 5.

The controversy began Sunday night when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway mistakenly announced that the coveted Oscar went to favorite La La Land, only to rescind the award shortly after and give it to Moonlight.

La La Land supporters across the country stormed to Twitter following the film’s stunning loss, making #NotMyBestPicture a top trending hashtag.  Santa Cruz, CA user Natalia Prim even posted that the movie “won the popular vote” and demanded that the Academy be replaced by a more democratic system.

Buzzfeed joined the discussion at 7:15 this morning, posting a list of “50 Ways Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway Are Connected to the Kremlin” and a quiz called “Which bigoted, racist, fascist, homophobic, xenophobic, and sexist Faye Dunaway are you? Take the quiz!”

Outraged supporters at the University of California, Berkeley started a peaceful protest this morning outside of the Durham Studio Theatre.  UC Berkeley junior Jade Zeigler went on the record saying, “If the Academy Awards don’t want to stand up for what’s right, we will,” as she finished loading a pipe bomb with rock salt and industrial-grade gravel.

Plans for the “Women’s March on Hollywood” were announced at noon after video surfaced of Moonlight producer Jeremy Kleiner boasting that he “grabbed that Oscar by the base.”

At press time, sources confirmed that the movement has actually been thriving for years, with the first use of #NotMyBestPicture reportedly posted by a Penn freshman on Instagram in 2012.

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