'Green Book' wins the best picture Oscar, and here's why many people aren't happy about it
- "Green Book" took home the Oscar for best picture.
- It's a controversial pick, as the movie dealt with bad press through award season.
- Controversies included an anti-Muslim tweet by one of its screenwriters and the questioning of its portrayal of real-life events.
- Despite that, along with the best picture Oscar, the movie also won best original screenplay while its star Mahershala Ali won for best supporting actor.
Universal's "Green Book" took home the best picture Oscar at the 91st Academy Awards on Sunday night, and that's not sitting well for many.
Though the movie was a frontrunner through most of award season, it weathered many controversies leading up to Hollywood's biggest night.
Days after the movie won two Golden Globes, including one for best comedy or musical, one of the movie's screenwriters, Nick Vallelonga, deleted his Twitter account after a 2015 tweet resurfaced in which Vallelonga replied to a claim by Donald Trump that "thousands of people" were cheering in Jersey City, New Jersey, after the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001.
"100% correct. Muslims in Jersey City cheering when towers went down. I saw it, as you did, possibly on local CBS news," Vallelonga tweeted.
Read more: Netflix's "Roma" made history with its Oscar wins despite losing best picture to "Green Book"
That claim was debunked by numerous media outlets in 2015.
And the movie's director, Peter Farrelly, came under fire after the Globes when stories from 1998 resurfaced of the director - who is known best for making gross out comedies like "Dumb and Dumber" and "There's Something About Mary" - flashing his genitals in front of colleagues.
"I was an idiot," Farrelly told The Hollywood Reporter after the resurfaced stories came out. "I did this decades ago and I thought I was being funny and the truth is I'm embarrassed and it makes me cringe now. I'm deeply sorry."
There were also knocks about the movie on how it portrayed the real-life events it's based on.
"Green Book" tells the true story of Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen), an Italian-American bouncer at clubs in New York City who takes a job driving African-American musician Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) during a tour through the Deep South in the 1960s.
"They decided to make Don Shirley estranged from his black family, though that was not true," Shirley's great niece, Yvonne Shirley, told The Hollywood Reporter. "They decided to make him absurdly disconnected from black community and culture, though that was not true. They decided to depict him as having spent his formative years in Europe, though he spent them in the Deep South where he was born and raised. They decided to create a story of a white man's redemption and self-realization using an extraordinary black life and a history of black oppression in this country as their backdrop."
Nick Vallelonga told THR that he interviewed both his father and Shirley in the 1980s for research. He claimed that Shirley requested that the script only focus on his and Vallelonga's relationship, that he not interview anyone else, and that the movie not be released during his lifetime.
These controversies led to many taking to social media throughout the rest of award season speaking out against the movie. And on Oscar night there was even some shade thrown at the movie.
If you look closely, you can see presenter Samuel L. Jackson giving a puzzled look when opening the envelope for best original screenplay and seeing "Green Book" was the winner.
Then he gives the side eye to "Green Book" screenwriter Brian Hayes Currie when handing him his Oscar.
Despite all the negative press leading up to Oscar night, "Green Book" came out on top.
It won best picture and best original screenplay wins, while its star Ali picked up the Oscar for best supporting actor.