Is it just me, or is there something pretty unpleasant about the reaction to the Oscars fiasco? There we go again – 'fiasco' is a word we only use for something that is utterly, embarrassingly, inexcusably, catastrophically awful.
Let's be honest: Sunday night's gaffe, which saw the wrong winner announced in the Best Picture category, wasn't a great moment for the film industry. It was worst of all, though, for accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), two of whose executives are responsible for making sure the right envelope is handed to the right person.
Cue lots of jokes about accountants, fuelled by a sort of generalised resentment at a trade that makes a lot of money from other people's money – and a touch of schadenfreude at the discombobulation of a whole auditorium full of people who are rich, beautiful, famous, talented and used to everything being just as they want it to be.
I get all that – and that's why I'm uncomfortable about it. It seems to me that joining in the jeers, while terribly tempting, is not a very Christian thing to do.
That's because behind the public cataclysm (yep, at it again) is very private mortification and shame.
It's emerged just today that the probable culprit was senior PwC staff member Brian Cullinan, who is thought to have picked up an envelope from the wrong pile. He is said to be feeling 'very, very terrible and horrible' about what happened.
Well, he would, wouldn't he? And given the nature of news, every year for the next few decades, no Oscars ceremony will be complete without a reference to 'the time Brian Cullinan gave out the wrong envelope'. It will be an annual purgatory for him, as he's bound to realise.
It's this capacity of the media, and social media in particular, to amplify and intensify the punishment visited on those who've made mistakes that is so worrying. It's bad enough for Cullinan. What about Tiziana Cantone, the Italian woman who committed suicide last year after videos of her having sex circulated online? Or Justine Sacco, who made a tasteless and stupid joke on Twitter about not getting Aids because she was white just before getting on a plane to South Africa? By the time she landed, her career and reputation were in ruins. Oh, and yes – this mention of her will get picked up by the search engines too.
Like all of us, I've made some bad mistakes. Some of them have been professional (not too many – I'm still working, after all). More of them have been personal. But I'm profoundly grateful that I can move on. I'll always regret my errors and sins, but I don't have to be defined by them.
Some people aren't so lucky. Their missteps are too public. In cases like that, they pay a price out of all proportion to the gravity of their offence.
So take a step back and look at what Cullinan (supposing the reports to be true) actually did. He didn't murder anyone, or steal, or lie, or cheat. He picked up an envelope from the wrong pile, in a moment of inattention. And the Christian response to that should be absolutely clear: unqualified, immediate, outspoken compassion. Don't laugh at the jokes; certainly don't share them. Don't be secretly glad that perfect people's perfect evening wasn't so perfect. Don't think about PwC, or Hollywood, or La La Land, or Moonlight; just think, 'Poor bloke.' And pray for him.
Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
