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It’s fair to say that the Netflix movie Emilia Pérez has been dogged with controversy ever since it was released last year, with the Spanish-language French musical telling the story of Emilia Pérez, a transgender Mexican cartel leader who transitions with the help of a lawyer. Despite winning critical acclaim and recognition throughout awards season, viewers have been less impressed — and incredibly vocal about it.
In addition to the people who feel that Emilia Pérez is simply a bad movie — with one particularly bizarre scene where Zoe Saldaña’s character, Rita, sings an entire musical number when looking into a gender-affirming operation for Pérez often going viral on X — it has also been branded straight-up offensive to both Mexicans and trans people. And director Jacques Audiard admitting that he didn’t do much research on Mexico before making the film only added fuel to the fire.
Then, of course, there was lead actor Karla Sofía Gascón’s recent fall from grace, with the star going from being the favorite to win Best Actress at the Oscars after becoming the first ever openly transgender person nominated to being exposed for a whole host of seriously problematic tweets that she sent between 2020 and as recently as this year.
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The tweets in question were posted in Karla’s native Spanish, but the translations were incredibly damning, with Karla repeatedly expressing anti-Muslim sentiment, targeting diversity at the Oscars, and even making some wildly offensive statements about George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.
And while this scandal may have thwarted Karla’s chances of winning the Best Actress award, it didn’t end up impacting Emilia Pérez on a wider level, with the movie taking home two Oscars at last night’s ceremony: Best Supporting Actress for Zoe, and Best Original Song. However, viewers were disappointed to see that none of the people who took to the stage to accept these awards mentioned trans rights — despite the trans community being central to the plot of the movie, and it currently being a pretty terrifying time when transgender people are having their rights stripped away from them.
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People were left particularly disappointed by Jacques's silence, with the director taking to the stage alongside musicians Clément Ducol and Camille to accept the Best Original Song award. While he did let Clément and Camille do all of the talking at the time, he was given the opportunity to address contemporary politics that are impacting the trans community in the Oscars press room afterward — but Jacques bluntly declined because he didn’t win an award of his own for the movie.
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Speaking via an interpreter, the French filmmaker said: “Since I didn’t win Best Film or Best Director, I didn’t have the opportunity to speak. But had I had that opportunity, I would have spoken up," and laughed as he stepped away from the mic.
And the irony of Jacques claiming that he didn’t have the opportunity to speak out when he’d literally just been given exactly that rubbed many people up the wrong way, and they took to social media to share their thoughts on this response. Reacting to a news article about Jacques’ comment, one person pointed out: “Yeah that’s not what you do when you actually care.”
Frazer Harrison / WireImage
“oh right because trans rights are only important enough to speak on when you win an award. literally get fucked,” somebody else tweeted.
Another wrote: “love how Emilia Pérez walked away with two oscars, a new meme, and literally no mention of trans lives.”
While one more observed: “none of the ‘emilia perez’ winners/team mentioned the trans community at the oscars, which is wild.”
In stark contrast, the team behind Anora won widespread praise for repeatedly acknowledging the sex worker community in their acceptance speeches, with the independent movie about a young sex worker from Brooklyn who impulsively marries the son of an oligarch sweeping the ceremony with several major wins — including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Actress.
Stefanie Keenan / WireImage for Vanity Fair
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