imperfection said:
I don't know how the fuck Crash won over Brokeback Mountain. Crash was good and worthy of the nomination, but it wasn't that good. It was understandable that Brokeback didn't win anything in the acting categories, they were up against tough (and deserving) competition, but best film? And to Crash? If Walk the Line was nominated and won, maybe, maybe I would be okay with it. But, Crash? WTF.
It's the film America needed to see. Despite its bloated, melodramatic simplicity, Crash shows that racism isn't confined to whites vs. blacks (it works the other way too, a very often forgotten fact), that people who are racist aren't "bad people" and that racism is something that is incredibly prevalent within American society.
Haggis portrayed all this in the worst way possible, but because of its tactless and melodramatic nature, audiences didn't need to work to figure out what was being said. All four other films required active engagement in order to realise their various subtexts. Crash essentially had no subtext. It wore its heart on its sleeve. I feel this is an absolute negative. Restraint is a sign of talent. American audiences clearly (and have done so forever) think differently. Or, they just don't think.
This answers both why Crash won best picture; because it is so accessible to American society, and why it won best screenplay; because its ideas were so relevant to American society.
Crash's only competition was Brokeback Mountain. The other three films are brilliant, but aren't films that win Best Picture. Crash won because it was so immediate and so accessible.
