The star at the Oscars is the one who rigs the awards

Talent can only take you so far. But to win an Oscar, what you really need is a good publicist campaigning on your behalf.

A few years ago, when accepting the Oscar for Best Actress, the winner delivered a long, stem-winding speech about world events, her career, the plight of women in Hollywood and a lot of other important things that, somehow, escape memory.

But just as the director was about to cue the "get the crazy actress off the stage" music, she wrapped it all up with tearful thanks to her "best friend" in the whole world, the person who "more than anything" was responsible for her award. And then she named her publicist.

Of course, most people don't have publicists, so it's hard to understand just how meaningful those relationships can be. But when the camera pulls back to show the packed, star-filled auditorium on Sunday night, it's a good idea to keep in mind that every single person clutching a Oscar statuette at the end of the night has a publicist to thank.

You are planning to watch the Oscars, right? It's important, especially during these tumultuous times, to maintain a sense of priority.

But just remember that Oscars, these days, aren't so much awarded as they are successfully campaigned for. The drumbeat starts in autumn, with special screenings and sneak peeks of upcoming releases, full-page ads in the trade magazines - "For Your Consideration" is the usual headline, with a few snippets of the best reviews plastered over a photograph of the star - and planted, orchestrated quotations in celebrity magazines about this or that actor's "Oscar-worthy performance".

Around this time, many hopeful stars suddenly develop a passionate interest in raising money for some kind of gruesome childhood disease - Motion Picture Academy members, the folks who vote for the Oscars, have a soft spot for pictures of beautiful movie stars hugging disabled children in front of enormous prop checks.

The goal in these early days is to make a big enough splash to secure a nomination. If you're a famous, Oscar-worthy actor - Meryl Streep, say, or Tom Hanks - this isn't such a tough nut to crack. If you're an unlikely name - Jean Claude Van Damme, maybe, or Lindsay Lohan - you're going to need an excellent (and expensive) publicist.

They orchestrate all of this - the ad buys, the screenings, the charity party walkthroughs - and when the nominations are announced, there's another round of jockeying and campaigning and manoeuvring, this time more intense and targeted. It's hard to pinpoint exactly how it's done, but a good publicist can suddenly make a long-shot contender look like an Oscar sure-thing.

This year, for instance, the odds-on favourite for Best Picture was The Social Network. But at some indefinable moment, that suddenly stopped being the conventional wisdom. Last month, it started to feel like the big hardware - Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Screenplay - was going to go to the more obscure, lower profile, small budget English aristocrat dramedy The King's Speech.

Everyone's got an explanation for why the favourite seemed to falter: the campaign for The Social Network was just too pushy; the principles involved seemed to be taking premature victory laps; the movie is too talky, too static; it's about Facebook, and everybody's bored of talking about Facebook; academy voters are just too old and out-of-touch to understand what the internet is; and, my favourite, the movie is about a guy who's a lot richer than anyone in Hollywood, and that's never something people in Hollywood want to be reminded of.

So The Social Network faded and The King's Speech closed the gap with a respectful, deeply English campaign that probably hit Academy voters right in their Anglophilic soft spots. People in Hollywood love plumy accents - English people talk so posh! They're all so smart! - so when The King's Speech team started appearing around town, it was hard for Hollywood not to fall in love. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is richer than the British royal family, but that's not going to help The Social Network bring home any statues.

Or, at least, that's the conventional thinking. Oscar night always has a few surprises. The hottest rumour going around town this week was that Toy Story 3 - the latest instalment of the Disney/Pixar animated series - is going to take home Best Picture. It deserves to, of course - it's a masterpiece of comedy, heart, character and story - but Academy voters haven't been terribly open to that kind of picture or that kind of surprise. Sunday's ceremony will have one or two upsets tucked in somewhere, but sure winners, as always, will be the publicists. They get paid no matter who takes home the statue.

Rob Long is an actor and publisher based in Hollywood