Oscars are Political (Oh, Really?)

The annual push for Oscar glory has become as politicized as a presidential election.

This season will be no exception as stars do everything they can to bolster their odds of grabbing an award. Studios will splurge on as many “For Your Consideration” ads as their budgets allow. Every acceptance speech will be carefully parsed, picked over and prodded for the proper amount of grace and humility.

Say, or tweet, the wrong thing — and suddenly one’s Oscar odds will plummet.

The films themselves offer another kind of political content each year, as they hope to change hearts, minds and a few Oscar voters in the process. Hollywood rarely falls back on the old saw — If you want to send a message, use Western Union. Nope, screenwriters prefer to tackle political themes directly or use their storytelling to hammer home their points of view. That typically means a left-of-center argument at the core of their message.

Just consider the following six films headed our way this fall.

“Truth” (Oct. 16): Dan Rather’s 2004 expose against President George W. Bush’s National Guard record got debunked by savvy bloggers and conservative media outlets alike. “Truth,” starring Robert Redford as the disgraced Rather, will likely suggest the true story has yet to be told. First, it’s based on CBS producer Mary Mapes’ defensive account of what became known as MemoGate, not the bipartisan group that determined the documents Rather and company used were fraudulent. Then consider what co-star Bruce Greenwood told me about the project earlier this year: “Rather than allow Mary Mapes and Dan Rather to support their story, they allowed this avalanche of right-wing resistance to swamp the real story.”

“Suffragette” (Oct. 23): The fight for women’s voting rights is both political in nature and bipartisan in modern times. Yet the movie arrives when Hillary Clinton could still represent the Democrat Party in the 2016 presidential elections. Clinton’s bid to shatter the political glass ceiling is the movie’s “x-factor,” an element that will likely come up during the film’s media interviews and possibly the film itself. Director Sarah Gavron told Entertainment Weekly she “wanted to make a film that felt connected to today.”

“Our Brand Is Crisis” (Oct. 30): Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton star in a film based on the 2005 documentary about American political consultants boosting a Bolivian leader’s re-election hopes. Bullock’s consultant comes out of retirement to goose the polls, going toe-to-toe against Thornton’s character. The original documentary drew sharp parallels to the Iraq War. Will the new “Crisis” similarly echo modern times through a partisan lens?

“Spotlight” (Nov. 6): An all-star cast (Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams) recalls the Boston Globe’s investigation on the Catholic Church’s child sex abuse allegations. Writer-director Tom McCarthy has said it’s a story people need to hear, though news outlets have covered church scandals tirelessly for years.

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“Trumbo” (Nov. 6): “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston stars as Dalton Trumbo, the blacklisted screenwriter whose career got derailed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s communist hunt of the 1950s. Hollywood stars like Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Liam Neeson and Joan Allen contributed to the 2007 documentary of the same name, which earned a paltry $109,000 during its theatrical run. The film’s trailer plays up Trumbo’s love for America, but will the movie focus on his Stalinist thinking and support? Or might it make a nod toward the less official blacklist of today, where talent loses gigs for saying something politically incorrect?

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“Snowden” (Dec. 25): Oliver Stone is arguably the most politically minded auteur of our age. The far-left director behind “W.,””Platoon” and “JFK” co-wrote the upcoming film, which casts Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the infamous NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Gordon-Levitt has told media outlets the rest of the world considers Snowden a hero, and Stone has a soft spot for enemies of the U.S. The film’s sly trailer features the U.S. flag held upside down with the words, “One Nation Under Surveillance. ..” greeting the viewer.

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