What ‘Emilia Pérez’ Can Win at the Oscars
It was a perfect awards campaign.
A win for the ensemble of actresses at Cannes and a jury prize for French auteur Jacques Audiard turned “Emilia Pérez” into a solid Netflix Oscar contender with enthusiastic support from critics and audiences through the fall festivals and well into Oscar season.
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The movie swept the European Film Awards, winning five, including Best Film and Best Actress for rising Spanish star Karla Sofía Gascón, and won four Golden Globes, including Best Comedy or Musical, Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Salda?a, Best Song (“El Mal”), and Best Non-English Language Film.
“Emilia Pérez” was also nominated for 12 Cesar Awards, 11 BAFTAs, 10 Critics Choice Awards, four SAG Awards including Best Ensemble, and was nominated by the DGA and PGA. So it was no surprise when “Emilia Pérez” landed 13 Oscar nominations, a record for a foreign-language film.
The other historic achievement: Karla Sofía Gascón became the first out trans actress to be nominated for Best Actress. She had previously pursued a long career as a male actor in Spain and Mexico before she felt safe and supported enough by her government to transition in 2018 at age 46. She has been married to the same woman since she was 19, although Gascón told me during an interview she had a four-year affair with a Mexican senator, one who refused to stay with her post-transition because she was afraid it would hurt her career. During the pandemic, Gascón returned to her wife and now-14-year-old daughter and is back in Madrid.
To cast his titular role, Audiard began by looking for younger singers, but eventually realized that older actresses Salda?a and Gascón might mesh well together. The Spain-born Gascón worked hard to sing, speak Mexican Spanish, and play violent cartel leader Manitas, who eventually transitions into Emilia Pérez. “I had to add a little bit of Emilia to Manitas and a little bit of Manitas to Emelia, because it is two different roles, but joined by the same soul and feelings,” she told me.
We spoke at the Sunset Marquis Hotel November 19; more than two months later, neither of us could have expected her campaign would be in tatters. Now, some of her past words take on a different edge.
“I feel proud as an actor for all the awards that may come my way,” she said then. “It’s incredible to receive all this recognition, and as actors and actresses, we live off that applause and people liking our work. But when you get used to hate and having so many horrible things thrown your way, it feels like revenge when something remarkable is awarded to you. And, of course, I feel proud of myself for the award, but also it’s a beautiful feeling for all those people who will feel represented in this way.”
Gascón’s campaign was in full force when she complained on social media about her alleged treatment by people working with her Oscar rival, Brazilian star Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”). Then all hell broke loose when Canadian podcaster Sarah Hagi, after a casual search of terms like “Islamist” and “haji” in Gascón’s X account, revealed a barrage of offensive, often racist tweets, some dating back just four or five years. Although they didn’t garner much attention at the time, the present-day damage was seismic. Many people invested in Gascón’s career now wish they had checked her account. Lesson learned.
The actress mounted her own defense, deleted her X account, and — since her first statement — is no longer communicating directly with the Netflix awards team. (They did not want her to continue to post on Instagram or talk to the media, two things she has done in recent days.)
Netflix has removed Gascón from their “Emilia Pérez” FYC ads in order to mitigate damage to the film’s other contenders. The actress will not attend any of the upcoming Los Angeles events this week: Thursday’s AFI 10 Best Film lunch, Friday’s Critics Choice Awards, and Sunday’s group Virtuosos tribute at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where co-stars Selena Gomez and Zoe Salda?a are also being honored. She will likely not attend the SAG Awards, BAFTAs, or the Oscars. If she did, she would be persona non grata.
Netflix’s current mission: save the Oscar wins they can, separate their remaining contenders from Gascón, and hope that a tsunami of negativity doesn’t drown their once-effective campaign. When Salda?a spoke out about the controversy at a London Q&A, she distanced herself from Gascón. There is no reason why Oscar voters who have watched Salda?a excel over an entire career and were impressed by her range in this role would suddenly change their minds. Nor should those who admire the two nominated songs from the film be diverted from supporting them.
But while many embrace this audacious multi-cultural film, it was written and directed by a French director who did not know Spanish. It was filmed in Europe. Mexicans, in particular, have many issues with the film, including the violent cartel storyline, lack of Mexican involvement in the film, and the mishmash of accents and terminology.
And, on the heels of Gascón’s social media disaster, a translated Audiard quote from an August video interview with French pop culture site Konbini also went viral: “Spanish is a language of modest countries, of developing countries, of the poor and migrants.” Not a good look.
In today’s global world, it doesn’t matter what language you speak, it will be translated and amplified on social media. The question is, does all this negativity actually sway Oscar voters?
It no longer seems likely that “Emilia Pérez” will win Best Picture. Even ahead of Phase Two, before the Gascón scandal began, it wasn’t positioned to win Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score, Best Hair & Makeup, Best Sound, Best Cinematography, or Best Editing. The Netflix team wanted to change that, but that now seems moot.
At this point, the film’s best odds are winning Best Supporting Actress and Best Song. Best International Feature Film once seemed in the bag for “Emilia Pérez,” but voters may now turn to a heartwarming family film with a relevant political message that is much easier to love: Brazil’s “I’m Still Here,” which is also nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress.
Now that’s a film with positive momentum.
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