A leg eclipsed the Academy Awards coverage this year: Angelia Jolie’s right leg, that is.

I remember when I first met Angelina Jolie’s right leg. It was Sunday night. I saw a Tumblr post of the actress standing proudly on the red carpet.

Jolie’s leg jutted out of her Versace dress. It just knew it was about to cause a commotion. She looked fabulous. I should probably confess I’ve been Team Angie since 2005.

When my roommate said she missed the awards show, I told her, ‘Angelina’s leg. That’s all you’re going to need to know for tomorrow.’ From Jolie’s sly expression, she also knew this would be the thigh-high slit seen round the world.

It didn’t take long for the leg to become famous. @AngiesRightLeg joined Twitter before the telecast was even over. The Twitter handle sent its first tweet, saying, ‘Look at me!’ at 10:36 p.m. Obviously because no one was already ogling it.

Since its inception, @AngiesRightLeg sent 28 tweets. Almost all of them were reminders of the leg’s presence. As of Wednesday night, it had more than 41,000 followers.

In Hollywood, there’s so much hype leading up to the Academy Awards. The moment awards season begins nominees are put under a microscope. Every early win is a step closer to an Oscar and every loss is a devastating blow to a fragile ego. Entertainment websites start Oscar predictions as early as September.

Despite the pre-Oscar buzz, once the lights went out in the Kodak Theater, Jolie’s name was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. The hard-working professionals who had just won an award were forgotten. An actress’ leg outshone Hollywood’s biggest award show.

‘The Descendants’ screenplay acceptance speech became a commentary on Jolie’s pose. When writer Jim Rash went up to accept his award, he struck Jolie’s defiant stance. It was a humorous moment, but a moment that should have been about Rash and his fellow screenwriters. He’ll always be remembered as the guy who struck the Jolie pose during his speech.

We all missed the significance of Octavia Spencer’s best supporting actress win because we were staring up Jolie’s dress slit. Including Spencer’s win, only a half-dozen African-American women have earned an Oscar.

This important moment in American culture became a passing thought because of the infamous Versace dress and the Internet sensation of ‘leg bombing.’

Leg bombing is a lot like photo bombing, but it features Jolie’s right leg instead of your dumb friends.

The protruding leg has been photo shopped onto Abbey Road, the moon and next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The leg also has been bombed onto Brad Pitt during his ‘Interview With A Vampire’ days, the Queen of England and three-time Oscar Award-winning actress Meryl Streep.

I love Jolie, her leg and a good meme as much as the next girl — as long as that girl isn’t Jennifer Anniston — but one scantily clad leg doesn’t deserve this much attention. This leg bombing will surely blow over as quickly as the Sad Tom Brady meme after the Super Bowl.

Ariana Romero is a sophomore magazine journalism major. Her column appears every Thursday. She can be reached at akromero@syr.edu. 

Published on February 29, 2012 at 12:00 pm