Stealing Hollywood

Not everybody, however, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be laughing. Forty of the thirteen-and-a-half inch gold-plated statuettes have gone missing since March 10 and the shipping company which transported them from Chicago to Los Angeles has offered a reward of $50,000 for their return. By themselves, the statuettes made of britannium and extra-high grade pewter are not that valuable. The price tag on them will be further reduced as they had not yet been engraved. They could, however, fetch millions in the black market from collectors.

Bad luck seems to be hounding the first Academy Awards ceremony of the millennium. A few weeks ago, officials realised that 4,000 nomination ballots mailed to voters in Los Angeles failed to reach their destinations. As a result, the deadline for voters to return their nominations was extended from March 21 to March 23 three days before the awards ceremony. While conspiracy theorists are already talking about a pre-planned attempt to sabotage Hollywood, the great Oscar heist could be a case of not being able to resist stacking up a batch of famous objects for the living room.

Apart from Van Goghs and Cezannes being stolen from galleries and then mysteriously returned the most famous case in recent history of an object disappearing is that of another statuette: the Jules Rimet Cup. The one-and-a-half kilogram gold statuette depicting the allegorical winged victory was the trophy given to the winning team of the football World Cup. In 1966, after England won the World Cup, it went missing only to be recovered again. In 1970, however, with Brazil winning the title thrice and earning the right to keep it permanently, it was stolen again, never to be found. Unlike the Jules Rimet Cup, the Oscar statuettes will be replaced. But the Hollywood heist once again proves that certain objects including the British monarch's undergarments hold a warped fascination for people who would go to lengths to steal and possess a part of pop culture.