Aaron Sorkin had a very specific reason for wanting to keep Donald Trump’s name out of “The Social Reckoning.”
In an interview with Politico, the writer-director was asked directly why Trump’s name doesn’t appear once in the film’s, despite it being about the 2021 Facebook leak that lead to more scrutiny over the platform’s role in the rise of extremism and misinformation.
Sorkin admitted that he didn’t want the film to be “political,” but that it was impossible to avoid that in general. By not including the “distraction” that is Trump, he thought the film would have “clean hands” from being overtly political.
“I’m not going to deny, of course, that the movie is political,” Sorkin said. “I just think it shouldn’t be. There’s really no reason for it to be. I wasn’t given a directive by the studio. I delivered the script and I think the next day I was in (Sony Pictures chairman) Tom Rothman’s office, and unsolicited, I told him that in that sequence we wouldn’t see any Trump signage at all. We won’t even see red hats. We’re going to see ‘Don’t Tread on Me,’ ‘Stop the Steal.’ You see American flags, Confederate flags, but it won’t be about MAGA versus everybody else, or even red-blue. It’s just going to be about Facebook’s role in the rise of divisiveness, extremism and hyperpartisanship. So it was my choice.”
He added: “It would become a distraction. I felt like as soon as we got to that scene, as soon as you saw anything ‘Trump,’ it would just become about something else. Again, I realize it’s going to kind of become about that ‘something else’ anyway. But I just like to have clean hands.”
“The Social Reckoning” unfolds from 2019 to 2021, dramatizing the Facebook leak by whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) and journalist Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White). Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg, replacing Jesse Eisenberg after the actor was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in “The Social Network.” The film explores Facebook’s role in spreading misinformation and touches upon the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Sorkin not only wrote the film but also took over directing duties for “Social Reckoning,” after David Fincher who helmed “The Social Network.” The film debuts in theaters Oct. 9.
