Speeches have also become longer over time. In the 1950s, the average length of an Oscars acceptance speech was 35 words. That climbed to 48 words in the 1960s and 104 words in the 1970s. The average length of a speech in the 2010s was 190 words.
The last decade also housed the ceremony’s two longest speeches to date. The speech for 2016’s best picture was the infamous mix-up in which “La La Land” was incorrectly named over the actual winner, “Moonlight,” is the longest at 1,138 words. Grant Heslov and Ben Affleck’s speech accepting the 2012 best picture trophy for “Argo” is the second-longest at 633 words.
As Halle Berry acknowledged in 2002 ("This moment is so much bigger than me"), award winners have increasingly used their speeches to thank family members and those who have helped them along the way.
Mentions of family members, including partners, spouses and children, have become more common than political or representation rhetoric, with 35 percent of the speeches analyzed including mentions of these people. “Family” was the second most popular word analyzed over the 80 years of speeches, clocking in at 86 mentions, followed closely by “wife,” which was said 81 times. “World” was mentioned most frequently, nearly three times the frequency of “family” and “wife.”
With the pandemic calling attention to inequities and injustices around the world, there’s a chance that the speeches heard Sunday could embrace political and social issues more than usual. But industry insiders added that Oscars are no more political than any other event — they’re just a sign of the times.
Samantha Elbouez, Laura Maxwell and Erin Morris contributed to this story.
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