While the million-and-one theories as to why the academy didn’t nominate sure bet best picture winner “Dreamgirls” for best picture have been amusing, my favorite is the “voters were just sick of being told what to think” theory.
The premise is that too much promotion by the distributor and unrelenting certainty from the people who waste too much of their lives trying to predict how 6,000 or so quirky, not-all-that-into-it-or-with-it academy members are going to think just made the voters say a collective “Oh yeah? Well, we’ll show you!”
I don’t know if this was a major factor in “Dreamgirls'” top category shutout, and I care even less. I thought the movie was fantastically crafted, slam-bang entertainment without an active brain cell to its name, so whether or not it competes for best picture means absolutely nothing to me.
What I like about this theory, though, is that the people floating it seem to think it’s a perfectly legitimate argument; which, true or not, it’s anything but. When Oscar voters want to express their – oh, let’s call it intellectual independence – over a mixed bag like “Dreamgirls,” no harm no foul. But let’s apply this line of reasoning to last year, which commentators are also using as an example without acknowledging its critical implications. Practically every quality-judging body in the movie universe agreed that “Brokeback Mountain” was the best film of 2005, but not the folks who gave the top Oscar to “Crash.”
Academy members may have been dancing to their own individualistic drummers then, too, but by doing so they stomped on any notion that their awards were a reliable measure of true artistic excellence.
Which, of course, ain’t news. But it’s also something that ought to be remembered whenever we take the term “Oscar worthy” more seriously than we should – which is just about any time it’s mistaken as the ultimate mark of cinematic accomplishment.