We’re loathe to read too much into the Gothams, the self-proclaimed start to the awards season that doesn’t really do much to forecast the rest of that season  (though as Michelle Byrd, who runs the awards via the IFP banner, pointed out, the breakthrough actor prize tends to presage a best actor Oscar nom).

But it’s hard to avoid the big headline from today’s nominations: the conscious choice of small indies over the  year’s anointed indie, “Precious.” Three of the five nominees for best feature — “Big Fan,” “Amreeka” and “The Maid” — have collectively earned less than $1 million, which has to be the smallest total for any three best pic nominees int he history of awardsdom. It’s almost like the committee decided to return a studio volley: ‘You’re closing down the specialty divisions? Fine, we won’t nominate those films anyway.’

(As for the merits of the noms, we’ll put out there that “Big Fan” deserves attention – it was an unheralded gem out of Sundance, both a wicked satire and heartfelt portrayal of a blue-collar man who takes his sports fandom too seriously. “Amreeka” is probably a bit less deserving, and “The Maid” we haven’t seen; if you know any of the six people who have, please have them write.)

But what’s on the list is less interesting, as it often is, than what’s not — a movie that could well outearn those three dark horses and the other two frontrunners (”Hurt Locker” and “A Serious Man”) by a New York mile. That (alleged) oversight would be “Precious,” the Liongsate awards hopeful from Lee Daniels about a sad inner-city teenager brutalized by many around her.

There’s already been a swell of a criticism about how and why the Gothams have omitted the pic, and what it says about the New York award show’s relevance (and, even, the polarization between indie favorites and the rest of the filmgoing world). Poll twenty people even at an arthouse theater, and most haven’t heard of these three pics.

Not so for “Precious,” which has been on a media and festival barnstorming tour since Sundance (and which was, according to Byrd, completely eligible, unlike “An Education,” which was too British, or “Inglourious Basterds,” which was too expensive).

So is it fair to get on the Gothams?

In a lot of ways, the carping over the omission is just that. The people who are complaining about the snub are the same people who anointed it an awards contender in the first place; their criticism is as subjective as the Gotham voters they lambaste. Besides, there’s a criticism to be leveled at “Precious,” particularly about it’s very precisely calibrated melodrama. Certainly the Gothams committee can make a case against the pic, and owes it to no one to love the movie, whether or not it goes on to sweep awards. (There’s also a damned-if-you-do effect. When the Gothams nominates a heavy favorite, as it did for Scorsese’s “The Departed” a few years ago, the complaining goes the other way – that the committee followed the crowd and went with a monied contender).

Yes, there is something to the carping. “Precious” is exactly the kinds of awards movie many in the press like to jibe the studios for not making anymore: dark and difficult (unbearably, at times), but with a degree of redemption, not to mention some likely commercial success (thanks to a seal-of-approval from Oprah and Tyler Perry)

It’s also a pic that, like its protagonist, struggled against the odds (it went through a host of pre-production difficulties, including a few weeks of reshoots; barely registered with buyers when it played Sundance opposite the far more hyped “Brooklyn’s Finest;” and, perhaps most traumatically, weathered a lawsuit from Harvey Weinstein).  That it’s not anywhere on this list — there’s nothing for Gabourey Sidibe on the breakthrough actor front, even,  an easy way to honor the pic if the voters so chose — suggests that voters were a little harsh, or at least very deliberately ignoring a consensus.

But rather than rail against the Gothams, there may be something to glean here. The prizes  may not be the best crystal ball for the rest of the season or even for what the indie counterpart Spirits (with which it often actively diverges) will later honor. But the committee is made up heavily of critics — Lisa Schwarzbaum, Kenneth Turan — and they simply didn’t see fit to honor the pic. That means it may not end up on a lot year-end best-of lists. Which is a far more substantive comment than the thoughts of a handful of indignant bloggers.