I'm well aware. It was a subject matter that appealed to a wide audience. It had very high budget, and was a project Cameron was passionate about. It was very well constructed technically. The costuming and set design was beautiful, with fantastic attention to detail. The cinematography, visual effects, and sound editing were all top notch too. It genuinely deserved *most* of the awards it won.
But you can have a very very well produced very very stupid movie.
It was was dumb screenplay. The love story was painfully tedious and silly, and we all knew the boat was going to sink before we bought the ticket and that's what people were there to see anyway. The boat sinking is what won best picture. Not the love story or the characters party to it. It was simply not a compelling story all. It was an extremely well produced spectacle about a sinking boat, but the actual plot?
Reminds of another technical acheivement spectacle film... also by James Cameron, also won multiple awards and nominated for several more (collectively 9). Also with a painfully stupid plot: Avatar.