After the racist tweets of its main actress, the director of the favorite musical of the Oscars publicly marked his disavowal. But will it be enough to reverse the trend before the ceremony?
The controversy continues to swell aroundEmilia Pérez. Less than a month before the 97th Oscar ceremony on Sunday, March 2, the film which left favorite with 13 nominations is bogged down in a controversy linked to its main star. Racist tweets from Karla Sofía Gascón, the first transgender woman named for the Oscar for the best actress, were exhumed on the social networks X.
The actress is disowned by her peers and in very poor posture to win the award. It’s the turn of Jacques Audiarddirector of the musical, of publicly releases: the French director said that he had not spoken to his actress since his controversial tweets were dug “and not want to do it”: “I will not contact her because, for the moment, she needs time to think and to assume responsibility for her actions, “he said with the specialized media DeadlineFebruary 5, 2025.
Jacques Audiard also condemned “inexcusable words”, “absolutely detestable and which deserve to be hate”. He also says thinking about the way she hurts others, the way she hurts the team and all those people who worked so hard on this film. I think of myself, I think of Zoe (Saldana) and of Selena (Gomez) I don’t understand why she continues to hurt us. “
This reaction was welcomed internationally. In question: an interview with Konbini published last August, in which the director described the Spanish language as “language of emerging countries, modest countries, poor and migrants”. However, he clarified his remarks in this same interview given to Deadline. The director wanted to recall that he has already made films in a foreign language (in Tamil and English) before renting the Spanish -speaking culture: “Spanish is a rich language that goes beyond borders. What I said In the past is completely the opposite of what I think. “
The chances ofEmilia Pérez Au Oscars destroyed?
In his tweets, Karla Sofía Gascón describes Islam as “infection home for humanity”; Mocking the anti-racist movement that emerged in the United States after the death of George Floyd (an African-American man killed by police in 2020), whom she described as a “drug trafficking”; Or the diversity of the Oscars (about the 2021 ceremony: “I do not know if I saw an Afro-Korean festival, an demonstration of Black Lives Matter, or a parade of March 8”). The actress defended herself from being Racist in an interview with CNN and refuses to withdraw from the Oscar race, ensuring that he had committed “no crime”.
The question is now whether the controversy in which Karla Sofía Gascón will have a direct impact on the chances of the film at the Oscars. Netflix, a film distributor in the United States, withdrew the actress from all her promotional campaigns and images, report the American media like The Hollywood Reporter. According to Variety, the streaming platform refuses to cover the expenses of the actress linked to the award ceremonies, as is traditionally the case.
At this stage, it is difficult to know, however, whether this turnaround will cost Emilia Pérez All his chances of winning an Oscar. On the other hand, it would seem that the chances of Karla Sofía Gascón to win the Oscar for best actress are definitively annihilated. The 97th Oscar ceremony takes place on March 2, 2025 in Los Angeles.
The film Emilia Pérez was already very criticized
Before the controversy, Emilia Pérez was already widely criticized by the communities represented in the feature film, namely the transgender and Mexican community. On Rotten Tomatoes, the feature film wins the distressing note of 18% of positive opinions, against 73% of the press.
The LGBT and Transgender community deplored a caricatural image conveyed by the musical by Jacques Audiard. The American association Glaad first denounces a “retrograde portrait of the trans woman”. What is criticized for the film, in particular, is that the transition of its protagonist implies a total moral transformation of his character: “Gender transition is not a moral decision, and transition alone cannot You absolve your past, “writes the journalist Trans Amelia Hansford on the Pinknews site. “It is neither a death nor a rebirth”.
In addition, in Mexico, we criticize Emilia Pérez to instrumentalize real dramas that strike the country, while offering an “inauthentic” vision of the country. Mexican critic Gaby Meza deplores the BBC that the musical “exploits for entertainment the tragedy that Mexico experiences with drug trafficking and disappearances in this context of violence”. The feature was actually shot in the Paris region and without anyone in the team or almost being of Mexican origin. And Jacques Audiard himself admitted to the interview that he “did not studied [le Mexique tant que ça. Ce que j’avais à comprendre, je le savais déjà un peu”. Auprès de Deadline, le réalisateur s’est défendu en assurant que la raison pour laquelle ils n’avaient pas tourné au Mexique relevait de questions financières. Quant au propos du film, il assure que ce qui l’intéressait réellement, c’était de réaliser “un opéra, ce qui demande une forte stylisation”. Il assure n’avoir “jamais revendiqué vouloir faire quelque chose de réaliste ou de documenté. C’est un opéra, pas une critique du Mexique”.
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