One of my family’s many home movies depicts a very grave injustice. My elder brother, probably five or six at the time, is participating in Sports Day at his primary school (here you do sports at school every day, I think, but in Scotland it’s an annual event). In any case, my dad was there with his video camera to capture my brother’s victory. Taller than the other portly little kids in the pack, he breaks free and emerges the clear front runner in the 50 meter sprint. Then, inexplicably, the teacher strides over, randomly selects the nearest kid, and lifting his fist in the air proclaims him the winner.

I’m sure there was nothing malicious about it, just an artless teacher deciding it didn’t really matter who won, because these were only five-year-olds after all. But the camera catches my brother standing there looking perplexed and gutted as everyone else moves on to the egg and spoon race. I know, I know, life’s a bitch. Shit happens. These things make you tougher. But maybe as a result of that tape, I’ve always been a champion of the underdog, hoping for once that the person in charge will call time out, review the play, and make the right call. It doesn’t matter if it’s a World Cup qualifier or world politics, fair is fair. But it never happens.

Until last night. Daily Show host Jon Stewart actually had the balls to call out that epitome of fascism that is the conductor of the Academy Awards orchestra! Year after year, using repressive methods that could even make Amtrak trains run on time, that quintessentially tyrannical orchestra keeps the ceremony moving at its characteristically idle pace, leaving terrorized and silenced celebrities quaking in its wake. For every maudlin montage of “great” movie moments they find time to subject us to, more time is trimmed off the acceptance speeches we’ve actually tuned in to see.

It has long been falsely assumed that everyone gets thirty seconds to speak, and then the music drowns them out. In fact, a much more complex formula is used: they begin by taking the significance of the award being given (is it Best Picture, or merely Best Sound Mixing in a Short Animated Feature?), and then multiply that number by the status of the winner (Clooney or that Ratatouille dude?). After that, time left on this earth is taken into consideration. If the recipient is an octogenarian, an extra thirty seconds is awarded, and anyone in their nineties gets a whole additional minute (conversely, someone young like Ellen Page would have time subtracted in the assumption that she has plenty of time to win more awards, and give more speeches). Finally, there are all sorts of tiny specifications taken into account, such as: Is the recipient going to mention the war? (Turn the music up! Turn the music up!) Is the recipient Sean Penn? (Fade him out NOW!) And is the recipient female? Automatic fifteen second deduction, ladies.

Last night, the autocrats truly outdid themselves by deducing that Marketa Irglova had earned exactly zero seconds of talk time. Culminating what has been a momentous year for the musician and her partner Glen Hansard, their song “Falling Slowly” from their movie Once was awarded Best Song. Something I had strongly wished for — but highly doubted would actually happen — a sentiment Hansard concurred with when he noted the film had been made in three weeks using two hand-helds. He gave his brief (ten second?) acceptance speech, and then as Irglova was stepping up to the mic, the music muscled its way in. Perhaps the equation showed that her lack of notoriety plus gender eclipsed completely the fact that she co-wrote the song, co-starred in the film, and had co-performed it only a few minutes previously? Who knows? Anyway, same old story.

But in a classy move, Oscar producer Gil Cates immediately caught the error and asked Jon Stewart to go backstage and ask Marketa to come back out and make her speech. It was a first for the stuffy old awards show. Coming back after the break, Stewart announced that it was unfair that the last awardee hadn’t been able to make her speech, and brought her back out. Someone actually called time out, reviewed the play, and made the right call! And did Irglova waste our time thanking her mother and the Academy and God? She did not. She dedicated her award, concisely, to all independent musicians everywhere, something close to my heart that so rarely gets the attention deserved.

And nobody died from the extra, unaccounted for, fifteen seconds it took! No celebrities expired from that additional time suffering a duct taped cleavage (as far as we know), the tuba player didn’t topple over from fatigue after holding up a fifty pound brass instrument too long, and the folks at home didn’t develop gangrene as a result of circulation problems from sitting on the couch an extra quarter minute. And the Oscar goes to… the underdog.

–Julia Clarke