Sure it's a decent nice lovey feel-good movie, but best picture? Give me a break. It won because Hollywood likes to stick it to the conservatives and give the award to Mexicans who are currently being treated poorly under the Trump lead government.
Look how many Mexicans have won it last few years, rightly so for some of them, but for this? What a joke.
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I don't think it had anything to do with his background or politics. The Academy had actually kind of ignored him up until this point.
Normally good films like this are overlooked by the Academy because the people involved aren't popular enough. In the case of "The Shape of Water," it was a similar scenario to your average Disney or Dreamworks film winning the Academy award for Best Animated Film: there simply weren't many good choices out there. 2017 was a very dry, dull, and crappy season for films, even by the Academy's low standards, and they frankly could not find the other films nominated worthy of being awarded. So it was kind of due to a lack of options in the "good film" dept. beyond what TSOW could offer.
I don't mean to be harsh, considering I think this film deserved such an award, but the fact that it only won the award by default of having no real competition, (and this is by no means an epic or super-popular film), it feels kind of hollow.