You know it’s awards season when prestige films are being picked apart for inconsequential or inane reasons.

In the curious case of First Man, Damien Chazelle’s stunning new biopic on astronaut Neil Armstrong, the movie has been dragged by critics and pundits on polar ends of the sociopolitical spectrum for two very questionable matters. In a wider-reaching controversy, conservatives blasted the film for not portraying the moment when Armstrong (played by Ryan Gosling) plants the American flag on the moon after Apollo 11’s landing, even though the stars and stripes have a ubiquitous presence in the film. Some on the left, meanwhile, have bemoaned the fact that the film has an all-white, male-dominated cast, even though it’s a historically accurate depiction. As film journalist Jordan Hoffman wrote on Twitter, “It’s truly fascinating how liking FIRST MAN can make you an anti-American cuck in some quarters or a reactionary Patriarchal prick in others.”

In addition to defending the film’s placement (or lack thereof) of the American flag (which is “all over the movie”), First Man screenwriter Josh Singer (Spotlight, The Post) also commented on the fact that the film is being dinged for its lack of diversity at a time when pushes for inclusion are at the top of Hollywood’s collective mind.

“Frankly, I don’t think it’s a ‘great men of history’ [story], I think it’s an ordinary family in history story,” Singer said (watch above). “And moreover, we wanted to be as technically accurate as we could. And at the time, it was [all] white men. And that wasn’t right, but that’s what it was. So if you’re gonna be technically accurate — and in part, we’re so technically accurate because we’re trying to shed this new perspective on a narrative that’s been sugarcoated — you’ve got to be accurate and depict the time for all its strengths and flaws.”

First Man, it’s worth noting, comes two years after Hidden Figures, the crowd-pleasing, Oscar-nominated drama that portrayed the pivotal roles of African-American female mathematicians in the space race.

Singer, though, looks at First Man as the story of one man’s — and one family’s — triumph over heartbreak. Not only did Armstrong lose multiple NASA colleagues and friends in test missions leading up to the Apollo 11 launch, but also he lost his young daughter Karen to a brain tumor at the age of 2.

“This is a story about a guy who was an ordinary American guy who had a skill set, and who pushed himself beyond a certain limit, I think. It was an ordinary American family that were just trying to do their best in some extraordinary circumstances. And frankly, to me, what is most extraordinary about Neil and Janet and the family is not Neil’s flying abilities, though he was clearly a pretty good pilot, and not even Neil’s engineering abilities, although he clearly was a very bright guy and an incredible engineer — but what’s extraordinary was the grace with which he and Janet managed to endure tragedy and failure.”

First Man is now in theaters.

Watch Josh Singer talk about the film’s American flag controversy:

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