Is Good "Taste" Succesful?

In this week’s discussion we talked about good “taste” and how it is related to the higher social class in history. It got me thinking, because the higher social class is usually associated with more money, would films that are considered in good “taste” be successful at the box office? In order to investigate this I had to think about the Academy Awards, the most prestigious motion picture award show in the world. Usually the 5 main films that are nominated for Best Picture are considered to be the most esteemed. Anyone who has seen and enjoyed the best picture nominees is usually seen as having good “taste” in films. So if these films are associated with the higher class technically they should also be associated with box office success. Unfortunately, this is most of the time not the case.
Take the year 2006 for instance, the five films that were nominated for best picture all had an incredible script, director, and cast. However, their financial success was somewhat questionable when compared to other films of the year not associated with good “taste.” Out of the five films nominated, “Munich” ($47,379,090), “Capote” ($28,337,516), “Good Night and Good Luck” ($31,501,218), “Brokeback Mountain” ($82,970,165), and “Crash” ($54,557,348), not one made it over the 100 million dollar mark in the box office. And it is also important to know that the majority of their box office dollars came in after they were nominated for an Academy Award. In comparison, a year later the film “Transformers” to which most critics and high class audiences found to be in bad “taste” ranked in over 300 million dollars in the box office. Overall I found this interesting that while in art the most prestigious pieces that are portrayed in good “taste” are usually the most valuable and expensive pieces. While in film although there is a high respect for Academy Award nominated films, the ones that become most successful are not critically acclaimed or sometimes even viewed as in bad “taste.”