How did the imploding ‘Emilia Pérez’ Oscar campaign get this bad?
Ever since offensive tweets from star Karla Sofía Gascón surfaced, the awards frontrunner’s fortunes have plummeted. Here’s what Hollywood thinks about it.
Oscar season can experience dramatic swings, but rarely has a celebrated film gone into free fall as quickly as “Emilia Pérez.”
Everything seemed to be going right for Netflix’s Spanish-language musical about drug violence, gender transition and much, much more — at least when Oscar nominations were announced on Jan. 23.
Celebrated at Cannes and fresh off a best motion picture (musical or comedy) win at the Golden Globes, French directing legend Jacques Audiard’s film received 13 Oscar nominations, a record for a non-English-language film and one short of the overall record for any film (just behind “All About Eve,” “Titanic,” and “La La Land.”)
Then, on Jan. 30, journalist Sarah Hagi resurfaced an archive of racist, Islamophobic tweets from the film’s star, Karla Sofía Gascón — who had just become the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for an Oscar. An uproar was immediate. In response, Gascon has defended herself, at length, in social media posts and interviews that she reportedly did not coordinate with the public relations team behind “Emilia Pérez.” In a highly unusual development, Netflix is now promoting the movie to Oscar voters not only without its lead — who plays the title character — but without even her name or image. It’s become an “Emilia Pérez” Oscar campaign without Emilia Pérez.
In the operatic, Spanish-language film, Gascón plays a Mexican cartel boss who transitions to being a woman. Characters sing and rap their way through Mexican markets and fundraising galas, all shot with dizzying visual flare as the tone swings from drama to straight-up telenovela. As critics have noted, it looks and feels like nothing many viewers have ever seen.
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But this film about tolerance, acceptance and the limits of redemption is now sinking beneath the weight of its lead actress’s past comments, not to mention the ways she’s handled the backlash. “What Karla Sofía said is inexcusable,” Audiard told Deadline on Wednesday, adding, “I haven’t spoken to her and I don’t want to.” (Representatives for Netflix and Gascón did not respond to The Washington Post’s requests for comment.)
With the six-day Oscars voting window starting Feb. 11, and a string of crucial awards ceremonies looming this weekend, Gascon’s controversy may prove fatal not only for her own Academy Awards chances, but in other categories where “Emilia Pérez” looked competitive. “According to my Facebook and the Academy members who are being vocal about it, people are like, ‘I am going to write my governors [representatives from each branch of the Academy] and tell them to rescind the nomination.’” said a producer and Academy member who, like others in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because it’s against the rules for Academy members to speak to the press. “I mean, people are really upset about Karla.”
A series of tweets
Gascon’s tweets, written in Spanish and posted from 2016 to 2023, expressed critical views of Muslims, George Floyd, diversity at the Oscars and China’s role in the covid pandemic. “I really think that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict swindler,” she wrote, “but his death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider black people to be monkeys without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They’re all wrong.” In another she called the Oscars an “ugly” gala, writing, “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M.” Some meaning may have been lost in translation, but the volume of tweets and their references are hard to ignore.
Gascon’s comments about Muslims (for example, tweeting that Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured”) have struck a particularly sour note with some people in film circles given the ongoing tumult in Gaza, said the producer who’s an Academy member.
Sue Obeidi, a senior vice president at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which advocates for accurate depictions of Muslims in Hollywood, highlighted a tweet in which Gascón called for the banning of religions “such as Islam” that “go against European values and violate human rights.”
“Deleted or not, these tweets are hurtful, offensive and shocking, most especially coming from someone who is a member of another vulnerable community,” Obeidi told The Post.
A film executive who is also a longtime awards season analyst (and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect professional relationships in the industry) expressed surprise that Netflix hadn’t done its due diligence, as is standard before the release of such a high-profile film. The company bought the film at Cannes in May and released it in November, leaving plenty of time to do a social media scrub and media training with a relative unknown like Gascón, who has to this point spent her career mostly in telenovelas. “The fact that people found it is crazy to me. It should have been deleted before you even release the movie,” said the analyst.
Hagi — a Black, Muslim, Canadian-based freelance journalist and co-host of the podcast “Scamfluencers” — has denied accusations that she republished Gascón’s remarks as a way of tanking “Emilia Pérez’s” Oscar prospects. She found the tweets, she told Variety, because she’d heard Gascón use the word “Islamist” in an interview, which intrigued her. When she searched for a few keywords in Spanish, “I found some of the most jaw-droppingly racist tweets,” said Hagi, who declined to be interviewed again for this article.
Gascón’s PR response
After the revelations, Gascón released an initial publicist-approved apology saying she was “deeply sorry to those I have caused pain,” and deleted her verified account on X. But she compounded the trouble for “Emilia Perez” with a lengthy statement to the Hollywood Reporter on Jan. 31 that seemed to paint her as the victim of people who “continue attacking me as if I were responsible for hunger and wars in the world.” That was followed by a tearful hour-long interview to CNN en Español on Feb. 1 in which she said co-stars Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña (who is nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar) “support me 200 percent,” as well as two Instagram responses. She also refused to withdraw herself from Oscar contention.
“I cannot renounce a nomination either because I have not committed any crime,” Gascón told CNN, declaring “I am not a racist.” As way of explanation, she wrote in one of her Instagram posts, “At the time [I wrote those tweets], I felt lost in my transition and was seeking approval in the eyes of others.”
Audiard, the director, told Deadline he was not in touch with Gascón because she needed space to reflect and take accountability. “She is in a self-destructive approach that I can’t interfere in, and I really don’t understand why she’s continuing,” he said, later adding, “She’s talking about herself as a victim, which is surprising. It’s as if she thought that words don’t hurt.”
Netflix, which bought the film and immediately positioned it as an Oscar contender at Cannes, has not issued its own response. But Variety reported that Gascón went rogue with the Hollywood Reporter statement and CNN interview, directly communicating with the media outlets without consultation from Netflix or her publicists at the Lede Company, who are now only communicating with the actress through her publicist, Jeremy Barber, at United Talent Agency.
The Hollywood Reporter first broke the news that, in an unprecedented move, Netflix had distanced its “Emilia Pérez” campaign from Gascón, and would not be flying her out to Los Angeles or paying for her styling or accommodations during a week of awards shows and events where she and the film were expected to be feted, including the Critics Choice Awards on Friday. She will also not attend Saturday’s Producers Guild Awards, where she was expected to be a presenter. (On Thursday, the Guardian reported from Madrid that Gascón will not be attending Spain’s prestigious Goya Awards on Saturday and that the publisher Dos Bigotes had dropped plans to republish a 2018 biographical novel written by Gascón, previously published in Mexico.)
The fallout and the counterreaction
If Gascón wins her Oscar, she would be the first Spanish actress to take home the award for a leading role. The rebuke from Spain, then, is telling. Two left-wing politicians have condemned her tweets, while journalist Sergio del Molino wrote in El País on Wednesday that the Academy should separate Gascón the actress from Gascón the person. “No matter how idiotic, racist, insulting or in bad taste her tweets from years ago were, they were not part of her performance,” he wrote.
While condemning Gascón’s tweets, the Academy member who spoke with The Post suggested that the trade magazine stories about Netflix and the Lede Company dropping Gascón reflected a form of spin aimed at protecting corporate interests: “I know she’s being scapegoated, which I think is wrong.”
Others in the industry say Gascon made the scandal worse than it had to be. “There was an apology that could have been given that would have made this largely a moot point,” says the film executive and awards analyst. “She has responded in literally the worst way possible because it rebounds back on her co-stars and the movie and everybody involved with it. I don’t know if the movie’s dead in the water, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was just enough distaste for it that it would be impossible for anybody to win.”
On the Netflix side, the only person to address the tweets other than Audiard has been Saldaña. Accepting an acting award at the London Film Critics Circle Awards on Sunday night, Saldaña said she hadn’t prepared a speech because, “I wasn’t expecting this, and especially now.” Without mentioning Gascón by name, she addressed the controversy at a post-awards Q&A. “I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad,” she said. “It makes me really sad because I don’t support, and I don’t have any tolerance for, any negative rhetoric towards people of any group … It saddens me that we are having to face this setback right now.” Speaking with Variety on Wednesday, Saldaña said she was allowing herself to keep “experiencing joy” throughout the debacle.
Now Netflix’s hobbled Oscar campaign must figure out a way forward while awkwardly ignoring the existence of the star of its movie, who may still fly herself to events and attend awards ceremonies.
On Monday, Netflix released a new “For Your Consideration” ad for the movie that centers on Saldaña and the film’s other actresses, Selena Gomez and Mexican actress Adriana Paz. Gascón is nowhere to be found.
Previous criticism of ‘Emilia Pérez’
The Gascón blowup is just one death drop on the roller coaster of acclaim and criticism that “Emilia Pérez” has been riding since it premiered at Cannes. Despite the acclaim at Cannes and the Golden Globes (where Gascon gave a rousing speech defending trans rights after the movie picked up the prize for best musical or comedy), the movie has faced a chorus of criticism about its content.
Among the knocks: “Emilia Pérez” is a French film about Mexico, filmed outside Paris, with only one Mexican actress, Paz, in its main cast, and a reductive and inaccurate depiction of drug cartels and violence in the country. Audiard does not speak Spanish and has received criticism for saying in an interview that “Spanish is a language of modest countries, of developing countries, of the poor and migrants,” in explaining why the movie had to be in Spanish rather than French or English. He also said he “didn’t study much” about Mexico before making the film. (Audiard told Deadline that the language comment was “the opposite of what I think” and that he regrets not shooting in Mexico, but the reason they made that choice was because they shot on a sound stage to achieve the film’s operatic quality, and the public film funding was 12 times better in France.)
At least one Academy member, venerated Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (“Barbie,” “Amores Perros”), has gone public with his criticisms — and he even has a film coming out with Netflix. In a November interview with Deadline, he called “Emilia Pérez” “completely inauthentic” in its handling of a sensitive subject such as cartels, in a country in which more than 30,000 people were murdered in 2023 and over 115,000 are missing, largely due to the drug trade.
Activist Artemisa Belmonte, whose mother and three uncles went missing in Chihuahua in 2011, started a change.org petition to block the movie’s release in Mexico. “I feel like it’s extremely offensive, overly simplistic, it makes it frivolous, I don’t understand the point of making something like that and that it has so many awards,” she told the Associated Press. Despite her efforts, the film opened in Mexico at the end of January.
Two days after the Oscar nominations, Mexican filmmaker Camila Aurora released a viral comedy short called “Johanne Sacreblu,” described as “a French-inspired film made entirely without a French cast or crew.” It’s steeped in French stereotypes (it takes place in a town called Villa Croissant), is narrated with terribly accented French, features two trans characters from rival families who fall in love during a bread-making contest — and has now been viewed 2.8 million times.
Then there are members of the trans community who find the movie’s depictions of transitioning similarly simplistic. “Emilia Pérez” received no nominations for awards from GLAAD, the advocacy group that honors the best LGBTQ representations in film and television each year. In a roundup of reviews from trans arts critics, GLAAD called it “a step backward” and condemned the film’s “profoundly retrograde portrayal of a trans woman.”
The Oscars loom
For some Academy members, “Emilia Pérez” just didn’t work, period. Two Academy members — the producer and one other — told The Post they weren’t going to vote for it to begin with.
But the controversy would seem to upend the entire Oscars race. The best picture pathway now seems cleared for “The Brutalist,” “Conclave” or “A Complete Unknown,” and for Brady Corbet of “The Brutalist” in the best director category. “I’m Still Here,” the non-English-language film with the most nominations besides “Emilia Pérez,” could now win international feature. Saldaña, who has won many precursor awards, may still have a chance at supporting actress, particularly since she has condemned Gascón’s tweets.
Is there still time to unsink this ship? Maybe, if Gascón issues a more unequivocal apology, or if everyone on the team even more publicly distances themselves from her. Or, perhaps, the analyst points out, she may get a resurgence of support from conservative and contrarian members of the Academy who oppose “cancel culture.” This is, after all, a body that gave Woody Allen (“Midnight in Paris,” 2011) and Roman Polanski (“The Pianist,” 2002) best director awards despite allegations of sexual abuse or assault of minors hanging over them.
“There absolutely are a ton of Trumpers in the Academy,” says the analyst. “The fundamental myth of Hollywood is that it’s a liberal, progressive place.”