When it comes to achieving excellence in film, there is one body that is regarded as the ultimate seal of success. We are talking about the Academy Awards for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This award is hailed as the epitome of prestige in the film fraternity.
However, there are some decisions of the Academy about the Oscar Awards that tell a different story about the standards they hold. Their judging protocols seem to be coming apart at the seams. There is an unmistakable prejudice that reflects year after year.
In this blog, we are going to talk about one such incident when the fraternity was shocked at a particularly bigoted decision to give Crash the Best Picture Award. The announcer couldn’t hide his shock and some people even walked out because that year, everyone was betting their money on an epic romance picture about two men in the neo-western countryside. The film was hailed as an important cultural event of the queer pop culture.
This is considered one of the biggest Oscar snubs in history. If you want to revisit this glorious moment you can watch the Oscars ceremonies on demand at Hulu. You can also live stream the Academy Awards on ABC. All you need is a stable internet connection like Spectrum en español for a high-quality and 4K experience.
Now let’s talk about this supposed Oscar “Crash” Landing.
About the Film
Inspired by a real-life carjacking incident that happened to producer, director, and co-writer Haggis. The ensemble crime drama told several interconnected stories in Los Angeles depicting racial tensions in the city. Headlined by Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, and Michael Pena.
Reception
The film was a box office success and an obvious contender come awards season, even though its characters were all stereotypes. Its Pulp Fiction-like vignette structure was a ten-year-old gimmick at that point, and its approach to the difficult social issues it treated was insultingly simplistic.
Crash was generally well-reviewed in its own time. It made many Best of the Year lists and was selected as the top movie of 2005 by Roger Ebert. Even Oprah Winfrey hailed it as an important film about racism and brought the whole cast on our show to talk about so-called crash moments.
Audience Perception
The film received an Oscar when everyone was convinced that another contender, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain. This film was a celebrated phenomenon in queer cinema. Everyone was so thrown off by this decision that the announcer Jack Nicholson couldn’t hide his shock. The seasoned celebrity mouthed the word “whoa” as he realized what just happened.
And what just happened was that Ang Lee’s groundbreaking masterpiece, Brokeback Mountain, didn’t win the 26th Academy Award for Best Picture. Instead, that year, the Academy voted to give their biggest honor to Paul Haggis’ now largely forgotten crash.
In retrospect, it’s become clear that despite its attempts to seem edgy and relevant compared to Brokeback Mountain, Crash was the safe option. Its ham-fisted messages about diversity and tolerance were about as far from controversial as anything could be at the time.
Criticism and Allegations
Crash gave Academy members an ostensibly socially conscious option to vote for. In the wake of the upset, Crash would ironically be accused of benefiting from bigotry and prejudice in the Academy’s insular membership.
Along those lines, some have noted Crash was the beneficiary of an incredibly aggressive Oscars campaign, one so effective it would reshape how such things were done for the whole industry going forward. And even Haggis would later concede Crash didn’t deserve to win.
In the wake of the upset crash would ironically be accused of benefiting from bigotry and prejudice in the Academy’s insular membership. There have also been reports that due to its subject matter, some voters complained about Brokeback Mountain’s very inclusion in the awards or even refused to watch it before voting.
Where Did Crash Disappear?
Crash has almost completely disappeared from the pop culture landscape. This backs up the fact that this film was given recognition for playing it safe to fit the Academy’s insular and homogenous jury that still carries values from yesteryear. Anything Crash was far from the first instance in which the Academy let an important cultural moment pass them by in such an embarrassing fashion.
