Vanessa Redgrave, holding the Oscar she won for best supporting actress, delivers her famous (notorious, if you prefer) 'Zionist hoodlums' acceptance speech at the 1978 Oscars. Photograph: Joe Kennedy/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images The most preposterous complaint made against the Academy Awards – an institution that invites much justifiable criticism – is that the ceremony has become a soapbox for dissent. Just last year, Goldie Hawn suggested they had become “politicised”. Someone is always decrying the supposed orgy of propaganda while eulogising a distant era when stars wouldn’t dream of touching on sensitive topics. The argument seems particularly hollow...