This year, the Oscar Gift Bag was a point of contention for several reasons. Amounting to a total of $140,000 / £106,000, the gift bag curated for the nominees for five leading categories contained several luxurious gifts from skincare, to alcohol and food, your expected inclusions, however a surprising addition to the bag featured a select plot of land in Scotland, awarding nominees a title in Scotland.
Only select attendees are offered the opportunity to take this gift bag home, awarded to nominees for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Director.
The exact contents of the bag featured a range of gold infused items – keeping with the theme, however, fans were keen to discover the exact breakdown of the bag.
Items included:
- A stay at the Golden Door report in California ($15,000)
- Liposuction Treatment by Dr Thomas Su ($12,000)
- A range of cosmetic and rejuvenation treatments performed by Dr Konstantin Vasyukevich ($10,000)
- A stay in Turin Castle in Scotland, featuring butler service, in support of Denzel Washington’s nomination for his role in The Tragedy of Macbeth ($50,000)
- A plot of land in Scotland where nominees will receive a title of Laird, Lord or Lady of Glencoe
- Kayote Joseph’s life coaching session ($1,200)
- Home Renovations by Maison Construction based in Los Angeles ($25,000)
- Popcorn
- As well as skincare, alcohol, gold-infused olive oil and pretzels and manuka honey featuring in the spread
Whilst this list is immensly surprising, regardless of the wealth that is situated inside one little party bag (a far cry away from the small plastic toys and sweets that used to be handed out), the plot of Scottish land and susbsequent title has to be one of the most surprising additions.
The plots of land have been provided by Highland Titles, a company founded in 2006 to initially fund additonal tree planting through the sale of the family plot of their land. Their ‘mission is to fund the creation of multiple nature reserves throughout Scotland by selling the most engaging gift in the world’.
Additionally, the nominees can now be referred to as their title Lord, Lady or Laird of Glencoe. Whilst this might be touching gift to help fund nature reserves, Scottish Twitter users have since called out the Academy Awards for selecting this gift for its encouragement of the exploitation of Scottish land.
On top of this critcism, the Academy have since received backlash for offering these bags out to nominees instead of applying the funds to other areas. Whilst the war persists and Ukraine are suffering, it is surprising the Oscars did not choose to donate the money from funding the gift bags, to donating it to more pressing causes.
Many popular journalists and celebrities have condemned the Academy Awards for this error, claiming the money could be used to ‘raise funds for Ukrainian refugees’.
Many civilians joined in on the debate, criticising the Academy as well.
Never to shy away from calling out the elite, Ricky Gervais also called out the Academy for their illustrious gift bags during his speech: “If you’re unemployed for example, take some comfort in the fact that even if you had a job, your salary probably wouldn’t be as much as the goody bag all the actors have just been given.”
Clearly a point of contention, it begs the question whether the traditional Oscar gift bag will be reconsidered next year and will the subsequent funds be used to instead raise money for an emergency cause?
More updates from this year’s Oscars can be found here.
