This article contains Emilia Pérez spoilers.
The first time I saw Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, I knew nothing going in other than who was in the cast and that it was a musical set in Mexico. Even the revelation that Karla Sofía Gascón would be introduced as a Mexican drug cartel leader who would simultaneously bribe and threaten Zoe Saldaña into helping her gender transition was a surprise. I imagine many such folks who discovered the film on the festival circuit last summer or in early fall—mine was at the New York Film Festival—had similar reactions to a movie which might go down as the textbook definition of a “big swing.” Here is a French film by a cisgendered (straight) Frenchman shot almost entirely in the Spanish language about reprehensible people (murderers and the corrupt attorneys) who genuinely find the ability to grow for the better—but never be absolved. And all with a quirky, left-of-center approach to musical numbers.
I understand the impulse to admire the audacity because I had it that evening, even as the final climax of the film, where Gascón’s Emilia Pérez dies in a fiery explosion, left me unsatisfied. On the one hand, it is true she got to live her true self, but until the finale had never paid a price for the heinous crimes of her past life. On the other, it was a clear cut case of a film indulging in the “bury your gays” trope in fiction where LGBTQ+ characters have historically been killed off in a way that builds up the cisgendered characters through their grief (see: Rent, The Children’s Hour, etc.).
This would become the tip of the iceberg. While the film was generally well received by the insular bubble of cinephiles who attend festivals—including the Cannes Film Festival jury, which awarded Emilia Pérez its Jury Prize and Best Actress for its whole female ensemble—it would prove radioactive to social media users on TikTok, X, and other social media platforms whose more diverse lived experiences greeted Emilia Pérez like the second coming of Ace Ventura.
Beyond just the problematic nature of killing your trans protagonist at the end, Emilia Pérez has come under intense scrutiny for a host of criticisms: GLAAD called its representation of trans people “a step backward,” though Gascón is herself trans. PinkNews claimed the screenplay was “so cisgendered” that Audiard “might as well have the word ‘cis’ tattooed on his forehead.” Others, meanwhile, suggest it is a ghastly inauthentic depiction of Mexican culture, including criticisms about Selena Gomez’s Mexican accent in the picture (although her character is an American who learned Spanish as a second language). Some go so far as to claim Audiard appropriated real problems in Mexico—cartels and disappeared people—as window dressing for a storyline written by a Frenchman oblivious to the plight he was dramatizing.
“We are still immersed in the violence in some areas,” Mexican screenwriter Héctor Guillén posted on X. “You are taking one of the most difficult topics in the country, but it’s not only any film, it’s an opera. It’s a musical. So for us and many activists, it’s like you are playing with one of the biggest wars in the country since the Revolution [in the early 20th century].”
These and more are genuine criticisms that are worthy of being added to the discussion of a film which initially was being evaluated merely for its ambition, or emotional heft as a piece of melodrama. Yet what’s interesting about the online feeding frenzy around the movie—it currently enjoys an abysmal 2.5 score on Letterboxd—is how counterintuitive it has been at thwarting Emilia Pérez’s momentum in the awards season. In fact, the film just earned 13 nominations at yesterday’s Oscars nominations, the most ever for a foreign-language film. This in turn has only heightened the controversy in the last 24 hours, with many lamenting this is Green Book all over again.
It’s an interesting comparison, because as someone who much more vocally rooted against Green Book winning Best Picture in 2019, I see parallels that Emilia Pérez’s fiercest critics might not anticipate: mostly in how little good it does to vilify the Oscar voters, admirers, and otherwise mere Netflix users who like the movie. A thin line is being drawn where the implication seems to be that if you like the movie you are “transphobic,” “racist,” a “fake progressive” (also read: neo-liberal), or are merely enabling those who are.
Suggesting likeminded folks are being morally bankrupt, or progressive in the wrong way, can have a habit of causing those you disagree with to dig in their heels. It can cause them to champion the art you hate all the more. This occurred when I joined in the chorus of championing Roma or The Favourite, or BlacKkKlansman over Green Book, and it very well seems to be happening again in the narrative around Emilia Pérez.
Is Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro willfully perpetuating negative stereotypes about his native country when he told Audiard, “I, as a Mexican, adore melodrama and adore the telenovela, the pitch of melodrama… and for me your view of Mexico was hypnotic and beautiful”? Is James Cameron a bad ally to say, “[Emilia Pérez is] just not like any other film that’s ever been made; it’s bold, daring, a vision”?
We imagine many readers will say yes. And it is fair to hate the movie; the film is most certainly a French outsider’s perspective on its issues and is open to criticism for its many blindspots. Its inauthenticity certainly wore differently on my second viewing. But to second-guess the reasons, motives, or basic morality of those who enjoy the movie creates the exact kind of momentum that will cause Oscar voters to entrench their opinion.
Consider Mark Harris, journalist and author of Five Came Back and Mike Nichols: A Life. In 2019, he wrote for Vulture about why he found Green Book regressive and ultimately a film unworthy of Best Picture. Yesterday he posted on Bluesky: “A few years ago, when I covered the Oscars regularly, I wrote a long piece about Green Book, which I really disliked, doing my part to make it the villain of that awards season. So did a lot of other people who shared my feelings. Emilia Pérez haters: you might want to look at how that turned out.”
He added, “Trashing a movie you don’t like is fine, but when you move on to trashing what you presume are the rationales or motives or predilections of the people who like that movie, you have irretrievably lost the fight.”
In other words, the cacophony of outrage might make Emilia Pérez winning Best Picture a reality.
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From https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/oscars-2025-shaming-emilia-perez-fans-wont-stop-winning-awards/
