America Tycoon: The Wolf of Showbiz-Chapter 802 - 795: Defying the Ban and Email Gate

Santa Monica, in the house that Martin had given to Bruce, Jody had made dinner and was calling Bruce over to eat.

Bruce was wearing a tight-fitting swimming brief that, comically adorned with over a dozen heat patches, looked quite bizarre.

Jody couldn't understand, "What's wrong with you?"

"My pelvis hurts." Since he had been to Chinatown several times to buy essentials like menthol oil, Bruce replied, "Someone told me to keep warm when my bones hurt."

Hearing this again, Jody subconsciously touched her own buttocks and, unable to suppress her anger, harshly said, "This time it was your initiative!"

Bruce, that scoundrel, was full of twisted logic, "I was worried you would harm Martin."

Jody finally understood why she had fallen for Bruce, realizing he was her true match because he was as shameless as her.

As Bruce sat down to eat, he said while eating, "The things I said while we were busy, you were just enjoying and didn't give me an answer."

Jody re-tied her blond hair into a high ponytail and sat opposite Bruce, saying, "I've been in this career for over a decade, I might not remember the trivial things, but I remember the significant events very clearly, I have never fabricated important news."

Bruce believed her, because he knew Jody, "I never asked you to report false news, but to use what you are best at."

Jody's fiery eyes glaring red at Bruce, "Do you know what I'm best at?"

Bruce didn't reply and continued eating.

"To get something, one must give something," Jody suddenly laughed, "Old Cloth, don't you want to see news that favors Martin appear on TMZ?"

Bruce immediately stood up and walked around the dining table to Jody's side.

For Martin, he had made sacrifices countless times.

When all this was over, Bruce and Jody started discussing serious matters.

As a journalist and chief editor with professional ethics and journalistic principles, Jody absolutely disagreed with TMZ reporting fake news, which went against her principles!

News that never happened and fabricated reports are called fake news.

But when something happens and then gets reported, it naturally becomes real news.

Thus, before reporting, they first had to create the news.

Both Bruce and Jody had done this many times and had no psychological barriers; they executed it with exceptional proficiency.

On the morning the Academy mailed the Oscar ballots, someone exploited hacking techniques and poorly monitored public equipment to send a highly influential email to many members of the Academy.

The content was not to smear other Oscar competitors, but to highly praise Ang Lee and "Life of Pi."

...

Living in North Hollywood, Ralph had joined the Art Directors Guild back in 1999 and several years later received an invitation to become an Academy member from the film academy, thus gaining Oscar voting rights.

Initially, Ralph would seriously watch the nominated films before each Oscar ceremony and engage in serious discussions with publicists or people involved in the movies before solemnly casting his crucial vote.

After several Oscars, realizing that none of the films he favored won any major awards, Ralph became increasingly indifferent.

He turned into a typical character of impartial voting, often publicly demonstrating random rock-throwing and second-floor ballot-dropping as responsible voting methods.

He also occasionally wrote articles in the media and on blogs, criticizing the Academy for letting promotion and public relations run rampant, leading to a debased Oscars.

Despite his age, Ralph could be considered an agitated young soul in the film academy.

Neither the film academy nor the Art Directors Guild was particularly welcoming towards him.

After breakfast, Ralph went to his study, turned on his computer, and prepared to post a blog. It was another critical moment for this year's Oscars, the media reports were a mess, another terrible session.

As he logged into his work email while opening his blog, he received a notification of three new unread emails.

The first two were work-related, which Ralph read and then deleted immediately. The third email, however, piqued his interest because it was related to Oscar public relations.

The email was sent anonymously.

"Dear Mr. Ralph Jackson, we apologize for this intrusion and hope for your understanding.

We are writing to express our hope that you enjoyed 'Life of Pi.' If you liked it and wish for us to win, please cast your vote for us and forward this to your fellow Oscar jury members, actors, directors, crews, art directors, and special effects personnel. If each could forward this to one or two friends, we could win the Oscars..."

This was a clear lobbying email!

Ralph's face turned awfully grim because, according to the Academy rules, any crew involved in the Oscars competition was strictly forbidden from sending emails to jurors to solicit votes.

Like pulling strings or hosting breakfast meetings, you could send out all sorts of materials, engage in various indirect lobbying, and even offer small gifts to jurors, but direct solicitation to Academy members was strictly prohibited.

You could say the movie is good, but you couldn't ask to have the vote cast for you.

Of course, what the Academy rules stated was one thing, the actual practice was quite another.

For example, privately, it doesn't matter what groups like the Trio of Scoundrels say among friends.

For example, the Academy had set a rule that gifts from the crew should not exceed 35 US Dollars, so the crews started "renting" gifts to the judges...

According to the regulations of the Academy, it was okay to send materials or reviews related to the films, as well as various promotional articles, to members of the Academy through mail or email, as long as there were no voting-related content in them.

Even if there were, normally it wouldn't be a problem.

If you don't say anything and I don't say anything, that's the end of it.

But Ralph Jackson, the old scoundrel singled out by Nicholson, was different; he was a cynical old radical who had been dissatisfied with the foul Oscar PR for years.

Before, if it didn't affect him, Ralph would turn a blind eye.

Now, someone had the audacity to send voting-related emails directly to his work inbox, and Ralph could not tolerate it.

"These scoundrels are getting too out of hand!" He pondered briefly and then took screenshots of the emails, logged onto his blog, and quickly composed a post.

"Some crews and films are blatantly violating the Oscar PR regulations, does the Academy not care?"

Ralph also attached the screenshots of the emails and published the post.

It didn't end there; Ralph then tagged the official blog of the Academy and the blog of Academy President Tom Sherak, sharing his newly posted blog with images, and posted again.

"I, Ralph Jackson, report someone for violating the Oscar PR regulations!"

After posting the blog, Ralph felt much better, but looking at the silent blog, his frown returned.

Do the big guns at the Academy really not know about this? The current Academy President, Tom Sherak, is a producer, and the Vice President, Tom Hanks, is a huge superstar, while the female Vice President Katherine Kennedy has been Spielberg's assistant for many years.

These people have all been through the Oscar campaigning; they definitely understand the ins and outs.

Suddenly, the notification tone on his blog rang.

Ralph thought the Academy had replied and quickly clicked on the message, only to find it wasn't them.

A media outlet had sent him a message.

"Hello Mr. Jackson, I am a reporter from TMZ. I just saw your blog post and the attached pictures, could I take a few minutes of your time, were these received by you personally?"

Ralph's heart stirred, and he replied, "Yes, I received these emails this morning; the sender blatantly violated the Academy's ban by directly soliciting my vote via email."

The reporter on the other end waited a moment before replying: "I checked the regulations of the Academy and called them up, indeed this is a violation of the ban. Mr. Jackson, can TMZ interview you about this matter? We won't take much of your time."

Ralph did not reply immediately, but instead checked his blog to see if Tom Sherak or the official blog of the Academy had responded; they still hadn't.

Even though he knew involving the official Academy would not yield a quick response, after careful consideration, Ralph replied to the reporter, "Yes, meet me at 10 o'clock at the Moon Bay Cafe on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood."

The reporter immediately replied, "Okay, I'll head out now."

Ralph waited for more than ten minutes and still received no reply, so he shut down his computer, put on his coat, and drove to the appointed place.

Of course, what he was doing could provoke controversy, but he didn't care.

Ralph was about to retire; with his pension and royalties from previous works, he could live comfortably.

As for the Academy, what could they do to him?

Ralph had no official position in the Academy, he was just a pure member of the Academy, and membership was for life, rarely revoked.

To be exact, from the inception of the Academy in Hollywood nearly a century ago, only one person had ever been expelled.

That person was Harvey Weinstein!

Ralph arrived on time at the appointed place and was interviewed by the TMZ reporter.

After getting Ralph's agreement, the reporter video interviewed him about the matter.

By noon that day, TMZ broadcasted Ralph's interview video and included screenshots of Ralph's emails and blog in the news.

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They also added a note about the strict regulations of the Academy to avoid confusion among the general public.

The Academy had just mailed out the ballots, and it was a time when the whole nation was keenly watching the Oscar voting; the incident instantly exploded, and Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube rapidly shared it, climbing onto the trending lists that very day.

Subsequently, a member of the Academy from Harbor City and another from South Korea also posted on Twitter, publicly sharing similar emails they received.

Although the emails were all sent anonymously, and TMZ's report didn't mention the film crew or the title, those who benefited were clearly visible.

When such incidents are submerged below the surface, it naturally remains calm.

But as people began to come forward, the surface immediately boiled over.

With someone taking the lead, dozens of Academy members also exposed similar emails they had received through various means.

The media, always eager for a hot story, followed suit, and the Oscar "Emailgate" erupted!