The 92nd Academy Awards are the latest awards event to go vegan. While the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences doesn’t serve dinner at the Oscars ceremony, it’s making the nominees’ luncheon plant-based.
“The Academy is an organization of storytellers from around the world, and we owe our global membership a commitment to supporting the planet,” the organization said in statement. “For the past decade, the Academy has been committed to reducing its carbon footprint. For the past seven years, the Oscars show has had a zero-carbon imprint. We continue to expand our sustainability plan with the ultimate goal of becoming carbon neutral.”
The move comes after the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Critics Choice Awards all made their events plant-based. The Governors Ball, which immediately follows the Oscars ceremony, will serve a 70 percent vegan menu.
Joaquin Phoenix Turns Hollywood Vegan
The decision also follows talent agency WME’s pre-Oscar party switch to a vegan menu. WME represents “Joker” star Joaquin Phoenix. On a winning streak, Phoenix clinched both the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. He’s nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award and is the expected winner.
According to reports, Phoenix worked with the Hollywood Foreign Press (HFP) on the Golden Globes menu. He and his fiancée, actress Rooney Mara, are longtime vegans and animal rights activists.
In his Golden Globes acceptance speech, Phoenix thanked the HFP for connecting animal agriculture and climate change. Following his Screen Actors win, he headed to a Los Angeles slaughterhouse. There he joined other activists in a vigil for pigs awaiting their fate. Phoenix and Mara frequently come to offer comfort and water to the pigs.
“We have moral obligations to talk about [animals slaughtered for food] and you know, expose it for what it really is,” he said at the event. “We are so indoctrinated with these happy images of animals on farms, on the covers of meat containers, at restaurants...”
He added, “And it’s a lie. I think people need to know the truth and we have an obligation to do that. I’ve seen it for what it is. We have an obligation to expose it. So I have to be here.”
