Why THIS Is The Worst Best Picture Winner In Oscar History

and the Oscar goes to crash if you were watching you just saw a shocked Jack Nicholson mouth the word whoo as he realized what just happened and what just happened was that Ang Le's groundbreaking Masterpiece Brokeback Mountain didn't win the 2006 Academy Award for best picture instead that year the academy voted to give their biggest honor to Paul haggis's now largely forgotten crash we the only two black faces surrounded by a sea of over caffeinated white people patrolled by the trigger happy LAPD so you tell me why aren't we scared we'll get into all of it but first why not take a moment to subscribe to the nerdstalgic channel on May 16th 1929 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented the first ever Academy Awards at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel the brisk ceremony bestowed a now mind-boggling 15 Oscars in 15 minutes before a mere 270 Spectators who ate dinner while they watched The Academy itself had just been founded 2 years earlier by the powerful Studio boss Lou B mayor as part of an effort to Stave off the unionization of the movie industry while its original purposes had mostly to do with union busting over the years the invite system at least theoretically assured the awards would be decided by the absolute top level of entertainment industry professionals it also however made the voting membership a fairly insular and homogeneous Group which is arguably the source of one of the Academy's biggest problems its tendency to be a little out of touch which brings us back to the awards race of 2006 the best motion picture of the year it all comes down to these five wonderful films Brokeback Mountain debuted at the Venice International Film Festival in 2005 and was given a wide release later the same year based on a short story by Annie PR the film recounted The 20-year romantic relationship of two American Cowboys played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal you ever get the feeling when you're in town someone looks at you suspicious lucky nose now widely regarded as being amongst the greatest films of all time the movie was celebrated by critics as masterful and poetic and would go on to be an unlikely box office success at the same time it was considered a landmark in terms of queer representation in cinema at a time when LGBT stories were still Taboo in the mainstream brokeback mountains Frank and open depiction of a gay Love Story made it a controversial and thought-provoking Rarity it was exactly the type of movie A lot of people felt deserved to win the film industry's most prestigious award and it seemed to have a really strong shot I wish I knew how to quit you then why don't you why don't you just let me be huh that same year brokeback received top honors at the baftas the Golden Globes the Critics Choice Awards and the independent Spirit Awards all of which are usually considered Fairly reliable indicators of success with the academy and that's why pretty much everyone including Jack was shocked when the Oscar instead went to crash are you making insult at me am I making insult at you is that the closest you can come to English yes I speak English I'm American citizen oh God here we go inspired by a real life carjacking incident that happened to producer director and co-writer haggas The Ensemble crime drama told several interconnected stories set in Los Angeles depicting racial tensions In the City headlined by Sandra bulock Don cheel Matt Dylan and Michael pea the film was a box office success and an obvious Contender come award season despite the fact that its characters were all stereotypes its Pulp Fiction like vignette structure was a 10-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 eert even Oprah Winfrey held it as an important film about racism and brought the whole cast on her show to talk about so-called crash moments but in retrospect it's become clear that despite desite its attempts to seem edgy and relevant compared to brokeback crash was really the safe option I'm hoping that someone like yourself someone who may have been given a helping hand might have a little compassion for someone in a similar situation Carol I need security it's hamfisted messages about diversity and tolerance were about as far from controversial as anything could possibly be at the time and it gave Academy members an ostensibly socially conscious option to vote for that didn't risk offending anyone I want you to sit down on that curb put your hands on your head and do nothing as I speak with these officers I'm not sitting on no curb I'm not putting my hands on my head for nobody 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 refuse to watch it before voting that being said obviously no movie is guaranteed to win and it's easy to make assumptions about why any given film may or may not be chosen 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 even if they refused to recognize the movie itself voters were at least willing to recognize Ang Lee for his Direction and the Oscar goes to Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain but brokeback Mountain's loss is now widely regarded as one of the most egregious Oscar snubs in history and even haggus would later concede crash didn't deserve to win backing that up is the fact that crash has almost completely disappeared from the pop culture landscape crash was far from the first instance in which the academy let an important cultural moment pass them by in such embarrassing fashion you embarrass me you embarrass yourself in 1959 for example they selected the singing teenage cortisen musical Gigi over the powerful Sydney potier vehicle the defiant ones in 1986 the dull Robert Redford Merill Streep romance out of Africa beat Steven Spielberg's emotional adaptation of Alice Walker's the color purple and in 1990 Driving Miss Daisy a relatively toothless meditation on racism prevailed over ley's revolutionary do the right thing it was a pattern so pervasive that in 2015 it exploded into a national conversation on social media under the Oscars so white hashtag there were no people of color nominated in 2015 I took to Twitter and I said one thing Oscar so white they asked to touch my hair the movement led directly to the academy making efforts to diversify its voting base but while the situation has marginally improved progress has been slow well I'm here at the Academy Awards uh otherwise known as the white People's Choice Awards in 2019 for example the already greatly forgotten green book won out over more highly regarded choices like Le's black Clansman greenbook a film itself about racism was controversial for among other things being co-written by a man accused of making racist comments its Victory drew a clearly startled reaction from presenter Samuel L Jackson and the Oscar goes to Nick Nick and Lee himself almost stormed out of the room but as the king speech's 2010 win over the social network shows the situation doesn't have to be rooted in politics for the Academy to let a moment past them high for example the academy has been accused of having a biased against giving its highest honor to animated movies and commercially popular genre films as recently as 2018 fan outcry almost led to an award for outstanding achievement in popular film but the idea was quickly quashed after a greater backlash it all seems like a bit of a mess but that's because the role of the Oscars has shifted so drastically over time with so many expectations to fulfill the Oscars are never going to be able to please everyone after all these years the Oscars are still doing the very thing they hoped they would driving professionals to do their best work and keeping audiences in love with the movies and so what do you think did crash deserve best picture and what other Best Picture winners do you think might not have really deserved their Oscar let us know down in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video you'll definitely find others you like if you check out the rest of the channel and as always thank you for subscribing to n nostalgic

Channel: Nerdstalgic

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Keywords: Academy Awards, Academy Awards 2024, Academy Awards Best Picture, Academy Awards Oscars, Academy Awards Crash, Nerdstalgic, Academy Awards Winners, Academy Awards Speech, Academy Awards Fashion, The Oscars, The Oscars 2024, The Oscars Best Picture, The Oscars Best Actor, The Oscars Best Director, The Oscars Speech, The Oscars Red Carpet, The Oscars Worst Best Picture, Barbie, Barbie Movie, Barbie Ryan Gosling, Oppenheimer, Poor Things, New Rockstars, Screen Crush, IGN, Nerdist

Id: y1D8l14Ar8k

Length: 8min 28sec (508 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2024