Concussion, starring Will Smith, and set to drop in U.S. theaters on Christmas Day, is the “based on a true story” account of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the first doctor to identify the dangerous effects of head trauma among former NFL players. Controversy surrounding the film is heating up in the press this month after a recent New York Times piece accused Sony Pictures of deleting scenes that would make the NFL look “excessively callous.”

It is difficult to ascertain to what extent a film about a powerful entity is ever influenced by said entity. Zero Dark Thirty, the spellbinding 2012 depiction of the hunt for (and eventual killing of) Osama Bin Laden, is a recent example of a film that ruffled feathers at the highest levels of the federal government and military. Some critics accused it of sugarcoating unfavorable facts, others of going too far in its use of creative license. But the “reasonable man” moviegoer that attended a screening ofZero Dark Thirty loved the film and found it to be, on the whole, fair-and-balanced.

Or is that merely what they want you to think? (Cue conspiratorial music)

Read the article “Is the NFL Turning Into FIFA?” on acculturated.com.