# Marisa Tomei's Oscar for "My Cousin Vinny" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 16, 2005, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marisa-tomeis-oscar-for-my-cousin-vinny/285020 "2005-01-16T13:36:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marisa-tomeis-oscar-for-my-cousin-vinny/285020/61 "2005-01-18T18:59:06Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > If you were talking about the general population, I’d agree with you. But we are talking about 6000 Academy members, so the likelihood that they didn’t see _Howards End_ (which won 3 Oscars and got a Pic nod) is extremely low, though I will agree with you on _Damage_ & _Enchanted April_ But it was Vanessa Redgrave who was up for **Howard’s End.** [Her politics](http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14208) immediately disqualified her. And the other nominees grouped together came nowhere near the viewship who saw **My Cousin Vinnie**. Remember that, though actors nominate supporting actors, the entire academy votes on the final award. They probably see the nominated films in a rough proportion to their box office: the bigger the box office, the more likely they’ve seen it. Only a small proportion see all the nominated films; the rest base their votes on the ones they have seen, or on their regard for a particular actor. In 1992, **My Cousin Vinnie** was most likely seen by the most academy members, and their regard for Vanessa Redgrave was extremely low. Any voter who saw only those two films was highly likely to vote for Tomei. ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marisa-tomeis-oscar-for-my-cousin-vinny/285020/62 "2005-01-18T21:22:38Z")
To me, Anna Paquin’s Oscar is a lot more mystifying than Tomei’s. ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marisa-tomeis-oscar-for-my-cousin-vinny/285020/63 "2005-01-18T21:41:19Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > . When he won there were IIRC four black Academy Award winners for acting (Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Whoopi Goldberg and Louis Gosset Jr.). [Nitpick] You forgot Denzel’s. [/nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marisa-tomeis-oscar-for-my-cousin-vinny/285020/64 "2005-01-18T22:27:26Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > But it was Vanessa Redgrave who was up for **Howard’s End.** [Her politics](http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14208) immediately disqualified her. And the other nominees grouped together came nowhere near the viewship who saw **My Cousin Vinnie**. > > Remember that, though actors nominate supporting actors, the entire academy votes on the final award. They probably see the nominated films in a rough proportion to their box office: the bigger the box office, the more likely they’ve seen it. Only a small proportion see all the nominated films; the rest base their votes on the ones they have seen, or on their regard for a particular actor. In 1992, **My Cousin Vinnie** was most likely seen by the most academy members, and their regard for Vanessa Redgrave was extremely low. Any voter who saw only those two films was highly likely to vote for Tomei. I agree, with the exception that they probably don’t see the films solely in proportion to the box office, but also in proportion to how many nominations the films receive. Again, this put Davis/Richardson/Plowright at a disadvantage, because they, unlike Redgrave, were in films that got no more than one other nomination, so the chances of Academy members who missed those films first time around catching up with them was lower (and I didn’t forget the _Julia_ scandal; I was just trying to complicate what I saw as a bit of a generalization). ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2005, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marisa-tomeis-oscar-for-my-cousin-vinny/285020/65 "2005-01-18T22:50:22Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > But it was Vanessa Redgrave who was up for **Howard’s End.** [Her politics](http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14208) immediately disqualified her. Unless you could mind-read all 600 or whatever members of the Academy, how would you know why they voted as they did? Why would her politics not disqualify her from getting nominated too, then? Elia Kazan (1955) and Jane Fonda (1972) both won Academy Awards despite each having been politically controversial not much earlier. ---
**Author:** ![tesseract](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bb73d2/32.png) [@tesseract](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tesseract)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marisa-tomeis-oscar-for-my-cousin-vinny/285020/66 "2005-01-19T01:07:31Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > I don’t know what you folks are smoking, but _My Cousin Vinnie_ was hilarious… My sentiments exactly. > [@blowero](#): > > Do people not think that comedies are “real” movies? It’s one of those movies that gets played on t.v. all the time, and that I find myself watching all the way through, over and over. I agree that Fred Gwynne makes the movie. One of my favorite lines (I don’t remember the exact wording): “The next time you’re in this courtroom, I expect you to be wearing a suit - and it better be made of some sort of…_cloth_.” > > And Marisa Tomei takes the simplest lines and makes them memorable, like when Vinnie chastises her for sticking out, and she sarcastically retorts: “Oh, _you_ blend.” Not a particularly memorable line, but the way she delivers it is priceless. I too have seen this movie numerous times and am always happy to watch it again. > [@Gadarene](#): > > As a lawyer-type, too, I have to say that My Cousin Vinny gets a lot of legal details right that many more “weighty” films don’t even bother with. Yep. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/marisa-tomeis-oscar-for-my-cousin-vinny/285020.md?page=3)