Since its arrival on Netflix in December, the Spanish-language French movie Emilia Pérez has been a nesting doll of controversies. The musical, directed by Jacques Audiard, has been slammed by critics and on social media for its regressive portrayal of trans identification. The movie has additionally been critiqued for its “Eurocentric” depiction of Mexico — even inspiring a viral spoof movie made by Mexican filmmakers, known as Johanne Sacreblu — and Audiard himself has made dismissive if not offensive feedback about Mexico and the Spanish language. In the meantime, earlier this week, the film’s Oscar lead actress, Karla Sofía Gascón, was most notable for being at battle with “Brazilian Twitter” for feedback she made about her Greatest Actress rival Fernanda Torres’s social media crew.
Regardless of all this, Emilia Pérez is up for 13 Oscar nominations and is predicted to select up no less than one for Zoe Saldaña within the Greatest Supporting Actress class. Gascón’s Oscar hopes are possible performed, nonetheless, following a collection of offensive, resurfaced tweets in what is likely to be one of the crucial stunning scandals in Oscars historical past.
On Wednesday, after Gascón was already within the information for her feedback about Torres, X customers started circulating years-old tweets from the Spanish actress utilizing derogatory language aimed toward marginalized communities. The tweets, from as latest as 2021, embrace disturbing remarks about George Floyd, Islam, and even the nonwhite winners of the 2021 Oscars ceremony. Different tweets discover her casually utilizing anti-gay and different hateful language.
The Oscars aren’t unfamiliar with controversy. Nonetheless, the mounting points corroding the Emilia Pérez Oscar marketing campaign are fairly extraordinary — and even make the controversy surrounding 2019 Greatest Image Inexperienced Guide look quaint compared. Likewise, it’s an ironic however extraordinarily acquainted trajectory for a film that has been bolstered by the Hollywood institution for its range and “progressive” themes.
What did Gascón’s tweets say?
On Thursday, journalist Sarah Hagi posted a thread with screenshots of greater than a dozen tweets from Gascón (in her native Spanish) disparaging Islam and immigrants from the Arabic international locations. In a single tweet posted on July 2, 2016, and translated by Vox editor Izzie Ramirez, she says, “Islam is changing into an an infection for humanity that must be cured urgently.” In one other tweet from September 2, 2020, Gascón, who’s from Spain, posted a photograph of a Muslim household, together with a lady sporting a burka, in a restaurant, mocking the function of ladies in Islam. Within the tweet, she sarcastically decried the sporting of burkhas and what she perceives as the dearth of respect for ladies in Islam, capping it off with a phrase that interprets to “the deepest revulsion of humanity.”
In different posts, she factors out the rising variety of Muslims in Spain, lamenting that colleges will begin to educate Arabic as a substitute of English. She blames Islam for a number of terrorist assaults. There are additionally a number of tweets the place she a European slur referring to Muslims or individuals with darkish pores and skin.
Customers then started circulating a startling now-deleted thread she apparently posted on June 8, 2020, about Floyd, whose demise by a police officer ignited worldwide Black Lives Matter protests. Within the first publish, a person with Gascón’s identify says, “Let me see if I perceive, a man tried to go off a counterfeit invoice after taking meth, an fool cop arrives, and goes too far in arresting him and kills him, ruining the lives of his household and mates, after which then man with the invoice turns right into a heroic marytr.” In one other assertion within the thread, the person refers to Floyd as a “drug addict and a hustler.”
The X account additionally uncovered different unsavory feedback, like a joke about China and Covid-19, and informal use of hateful language. A publish concerning the 2021 Oscars ceremonies, learn, “Increasingly more the #Oscars are wanting like a ceremony for impartial and protest movies. I didn’t know if I used to be watching an Afro-Korean competition, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M [feminist strike],” referring to an Worldwide Girls’s Day march, which takes place on March 8. Customers additionally discovered a weird publish the place she refers to paparazzi pictures of Miley Cyrus cozying up with a lady as “lesbian perversion.” This publish is likely to be seen as notably baffling, as Gascón is herself a trans girl who’s married to a different girl.
Gascón’s X account has since been deleted, though screenshots of her feedback nonetheless abound on-line. On Friday, she additionally gave a terse apology to Selection: “I wish to acknowledge the dialog round my previous social media posts which have brought on harm. As somebody in a marginalized group, I do know this struggling all too effectively, and I’m deeply sorry to these I’ve brought on ache. All my life, I’ve fought for a greater world. I consider gentle will all the time conquer darkness.”
She had beforehand despatched a extra defiant unique assertion to the Hollywood Reporter, explaining why she deleted her account. In that assertion, she known as the backlash a “marketing campaign of hate and misinformation,” whereas implying that the opinions she said have modified:
“As a part of this society, I’ve expressed my disagreement or settlement with all of the associated points which have touched me and of which I’ve had an opinion, usually inaccurate, which has modified all through my very own expertise. I’ve all the time used my social media as a diary, reflections or notes, to later create tales or characters, not as one thing that might be scrutinized all the way down to the final of its 140 characters, since generally I, myself, am not even conscious of getting written one thing unfavourable.”
Oscars campaigns are often messy, however not this messy
For many years, the sabotaged Oscars marketing campaign has been an interesting — and usually amusing — phenomenon of awards season. Exterior of Gascón’s antics, this yr alone has seen a number of different controversies threaten the possibilities of sure Oscar hopefuls. Final week, the editor of 10-time Oscar nominee The Brutalist, Dávid Jancsó, revealed that he utilized AI to good Adrien Brody’s Hungarian speech in a quick a part of the movie. This led to questions on whether or not Brody’s efficiency, which has already earned him a Golden Globe, needs to be re-evaluated.
In the meantime, within the midst of Gascón’s controversy, social media customers discovered an article that her rival Torres had written slamming Amber Heard throughout her 2023 defamation trial in opposition to her ex-husband Johnny Depp, in addition to a resurfaced video of Torres showing in blackface in comedy sketch on a Brazilian TV present, for which she apologized earlier this week.
Different instances, these flubbed campaigns have usually emerged from aggressive PR measures, from the Bette Davis notorious write-in marketing campaign to the supposed “overkill” of Diana Ross’s Greatest Actress marketing campaign adverts for Woman Sings the Blues to Melissa Leo’s self-funded “Contemplate…” plea — though she finally went on to obtain her Oscar. This form of zealous marketing campaign was famously codified by former movie producer Harvey Weinstein. Earlier than Gascón’s scandal, the mantle for probably the most controversial latest Greatest Actress nominee belonged to Andrea Riseborough, who brought on an enormous kerfuffle when she acquired a stunning nod in 2023 for the small Sundance movie To Leslie, attributable to sudden endorsements by celebrities and a doubtful e-mail despatched to voters. The last-minute however shockingly environment friendly marketing campaign finally didn’t go in opposition to the Academy’s lobbying guidelines, nevertheless it did put a mark on the actress main as much as the awards present.
Normally, although, it’s far more uncommon {that a} contender’s Oscars probabilities have been tainted if not utterly shattered attributable to hate speech — the latest instance being Lars von Trier’s antisemitic feedback throughout a press convention for his 2011 movie Melancholia. Nonetheless, Gascón’s controversy presents a extra complicated and head-scratching case, on condition that Gascón is the primary overtly trans appearing nominee. Regardless of how groundbreaking her nomination is on paper, her hateful feedback on social media blot out any notion that her nomination is a win for progress.
Her controversial feedback additionally current a reliable conundrum for the ceremony. People are already questioning how she’ll be included within the Greatest Actress presentation. The Academy not too long ago introduced that it might be bringing again the “Fab 5” format, the place earlier appearing winners give a heartfelt introduction to every of the nominees. There’s additionally all the time the likelihood for extra vocal backlash and even boycotts from the teams she focused.
Total, Gascón’s remarks have solely continued to light up the vanity of Emilia Pérez as a venture and a “progressive” decide for the Academy. Following her scandal, people have overtly questioned why a European girl was solid within the function of a Mexican character, and recirculated feedback about Audiard professing his personal ignorance about Mexico. They’ve additionally affected any remaining quantity of goodwill that the film had going for it, together with a highly effective assertion Gascón made on the Golden Globes earlier in January, when the movie received Greatest Image — Musical or Comedy.
“The sunshine all the time wins over darkness,” she mentioned. “You may put us in jail, you may beat us up, however you may by no means take away our soul or our resistance or our identification. I wish to say to you, increase your voice and say that I received, I’m who I’m, not who you need [me to be].” Who knew that, just a few weeks later, it’d be recycled for an apology?
