Like Kathryn Bigelow, recipient of the Oscar for Best Director, I’m utterly speechless.  Last night the Academy decided, under pressure from the big moneymakers and unique genre films, to select the best-made film for best picture.  Going into this, I was almost certain that it was going to be Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director and Avatar for Best Film.  I am so glad that I was wrong.

To quote Jake’s succinct and neatly-put Facebook summary:

“All and all, not a bad oscars. The best film won, a woman won best director, avatar won the stuff it actually did well, up in the air went home empty-handed… Mo’Nique is awesome, maybe Sandra Bullock can adopt her?”

Last night may prove to be a turning point for the Oscars, in which discerning judgement came back into the game.  The Academy made a call not to act as the “People’s” (that’s a capital-p) award , or as the “Industry” (that’s a capital-i) award, but as an award given by a body of artists in Hollywood.  There was chatter in the bars, there was word of mouth, and there were actual opinions of the work produced in 2009.  That — not an Oscar campaign — gave out the Oscars last night.

One could make an argument that Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar was nothing if not political, but Hurt Locker‘s best picture Oscar was not.  Last year, Slumdog Millionaire won out of an odd mixture of guilt and sentimentality–the same mechanism that pops in our brain when we see poor and starving children on the streets.  It had little to do with the filmmaking and much to do with triumphalism of a little film that could take down the big dogs to win the awards.

Avatar was essentially a special installation at the Universal Studios Orlando theme park.  It was a 3D visual feast, and big-screen entertainment in its fullest incarnation.  But it never attempted to identify itself within the tradition of Hollywood and the film arts; that was James Cameron’s hubris.  He complained that the press never took his actors seriously and that there was a conspiracy to belittle motion-capture technology.  You can’t have it both ways, Jimbo.

The Hurt Locker is not a perfect film.  Kathryn Bigelow is not a perfect director.  But sometimes, the Academy manages to act as a legitimate voice and point out excellence in filmmaking.  And when that happens, it’s a good night.

"Hurt Locker" Director Kathryn Bigelow

Co-head New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis just gave an interview with Jezebel, and she held little, if anything, back. “Let’s acknowledge,” she says right off the bat, “That the Oscars are bullshit and we hate them. But they are important commercially… I’ve learned to never underestimate the academy’s bad taste. Crash as best picture? What the fuck.”

It’s the right time to be talking about this. Oscar nominations were revealed this morning, and no one’s shy about framing these year’s race as a context between James Cameron and his ex-wife, Katheryn Bigelow. Bigelow, of course, is the underdog. Cameron’s Avatar is the highest grossing movie since, well, Titanic. Yet Dargis’ analysis of the Oscars accepts that Dargis’ status as underdog makes her simultaneously top dog: “The only thing Hollywood is interested in money, and after that prestige. That’s why they’ll be interested in something like The Hurt Locker. She’s done so well critically that she can’t be ignored.” Man/woman; money/prestige.

Dargis understands that Bigelow’s achievement comes out of her work specifically in the action genre and not in, say, romantic comedy (for which she reveals a healthy distaste): “Something like a woman winning best director for directing an action movie and not a romantic comedy is symbolically important. Whether it then leads to a lot of women doing things outside of the pathetic comfort zone of romantic comedy – and I say that as someone who loves romantic comedy – we’ll see. We know that because women are allowed to make romantic comedies that they can make romantic comedies. That’s in everyone’s comfort zone. The idea that a woman can be a great action director is not is everyone’s comfort zone. That’s [Bigelow's] exceptionalism.”

Hollywood has always profited off of framing women, selling them. Dargis thinks that if women can profit off of themselves — sell themselves as action directors, war movie directors, whatever they want — it’s as close as we can get to a step forward. Is Hollywood getting better? Is Hollywood going to change? In Dargis’ words: “It’s pretty shitty right now. Anything positive can only help a little bit. How’s that for optimism?