Before I start off this article, let me give a good word of advice to the Academy award committee - try to keep the political themes in your functions to the minimum. It is is really great that your are addressing relevant issues like racism, Donald Trump in your events, but sometimes, they do not end the way you really want. This year's major theme was the Times Up or Me Too campaign, that has been initiated to empower women to speak up against sexual predators in the industry and take them to task, while also showing the world that they are not any less than the male technicians in the industry.

There were instances sprinkled around the event that discussed this, from Jimmy Kimmel's opening monologue to Best Actress winner Frances McDormand making every female nominee stand up and ask people to cheer for them. Then there was Emma Stone, last year's Best Actress winner (La La Land) who also hinted at this in her presentation speech. Only this time, she elicited outrage on social networking sites.

As you know, Greta Gerwig was nominated as the Best Director for Lady Bird (which she lost to Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water). So when Emma Stone talked about the nominees, she referred them to as 'these four men and Greta Gerwig'.

While she got applause for the comment then, Twitter slammed her for the feminist jibe. Many of them reminded her of the fact that there was a black nominee (Jordan Peele) as well as a Latino director (Guillermo del Toro), both nominations were also special when it comes to celebrate racial diversity. Some of them even went on to the extent of reminding Stone that she herself is an example of whitewashing, when she played a half-Chinese character in Aloha.

Emma Stone was the only controversial star or aspect of the show. Twitter was also outraged at the Academy for honouring Gary Oldman (Best Actor - The Darkest Hour) who was accused of physical assault by his ex-wife, and basketball star Kobe Bryant (Best Animated Short), an alleged rapist.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 06, 2018 06:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).