- Netflix’s “Emilia Pérez” has received the most nominations from major award bodies this season.
- But in recent weeks, the film and its cast have faced multiple controversies on social media.
- In the latest crisis, fans are attacking the film’s lead, Karla Sofía Gascón, for her old social media posts.
“Emilia Pérez” is a frontrunner for the 2025 Oscars after bagging 13 nominations, but a growing number of fans and critics are turning against it.
The Netflix film, starring Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Karla Sofía Gascón, is a cross-genre crime musical about a Mexican cartel boss who fakes her death so she can transition.
Variety reported that Netflix bought the film for approximately $12 million after it premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. While it wasn’t a hit on the platform, its award success is a boost to Netflix’s reputation.
Some film fans have questioned why the film is drawing so many accolades, arguing its competition is better, and have criticized old social media posts by its lead actor, Gascón.
On Rotten Tomatoes, it had a critic score of 76% and an audience score of 34%, indicating a divide between industry experts and the general public.
Here are the controversies surrounding the film explained.
All awards shows could use more behavior like this, especially when you lose to something like Emilia Pérez. https://t.co/V1UJUjCJdf
— Jeff Zhang 张佶润 (@strangeharbors) January 6, 2025
EMILIA PÉREZ lets voters feel good about themselves for selecting something perceived as edgy, challenging and socially conscious all at once, and despite thinking it’s retrograde trash I am honestly not surprised it’s doing well!
— Brendan Hodges (@metaplexmovies) January 6, 2025
Fans mocked what they view as a bizarre musical number in the film
In one scene that went viral, a doctor sings about the gender reassignment surgeries he has performed.
Users on X who saw the clip out of context mocked the musical number, while others who had seen the film called it boring.
Film fans reignited criticism by resharing the scene after “Emilia Pérez” won four awards at the Golden Globes on January 6.
It won the award for best musical or comedy motion picture over many fan-favorite films, including “Wicked,” “The Substance,” and “Challengers.”
Gomez’s performance and her Spanish language skills have also been criticized.
Eugenio Derbez, a Mexican actor who starred in 2021’s “Coda,” called her performance “indefensible” last December on the Mexican entertainment podcast “Hablando de Cine.”
After Gomez said sorry and that she did the best she could with the time she was given, Derbez apologized the next day for his “thoughtless” comments.
Others have complained about how the film portrays trans identity
WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS / PATHÉ FILMS / FRANCE 2 CINÉMA / PAGE 114
At first glance, it would seem progressive for a film about a trans person to win multiple Oscars, as an openly trans actor is yet to win an Academy Award. But critics say the film doesn’t uplift the community, partly because it includes transphobic tropes, such as describing a transwoman as “half male/half female.”
In November 2024, the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD called the film “a step backward for trans representation” and shared several negative reviews from critics who are trans.
On January 6, Gascón told Vanity Fair: “Many are running a negative, nasty campaign against the film, so anything that I say, they will use it to make their case bigger.
“When something has a big impact and is liked by many, others hate it just for existing.”
When asked about critics who are trans panning the movie, Gascón said: “Being LGBTQ, having those labels, does not remove your stupidity, just like heterosexuality does not remove your stupidity.
“What bothers me is that the people that say things like that just sitting down at home doing nothing. If you don’t like it, go and make your own movie. Go create the representation you want to see for your community.”
Gascón added that the trans experience is not a monolith.
Juan Barquin, a critic of the movie who is trans and was mentioned in the Vanity Fair article, responded in an X post the next day, telling Gascón to “go fuck herself” and give her money to make her own trans movie.
Another trans critic mentioned in the piece, Drew Burnett Gregory, said: “I’ve watched many trans actors and writers attach themselves to cis artists in the hopes of helping their careers.
“It’s not a position I envy. When the dust settles and the awards are doled out, it’s the cis people who have benefited while the trans people can barely get work.”
On January 6, Jeremy O. Harris, a Tony-nominated playwright and actor, shared a Instagram story post criticizing the outlet THEM and other LGBTQ+ detractors of “Emilia Pérez,” arguing its success could open doors for representation.
Some have criticize how Mexico is portrayed
Shanna Besson/Page 114 – Why Not Productions – Pathé Films – France 2 Cinéma
“Emilia Pérez” is mostly set in Mexico, but the film’s director, Jacques Audiard, is French, and the movie was made in France. In addition, one Mexican-born actor has a lead role: Adriana Paz. Gomez is American and has Mexican heritage; Saldaña’s parents are Dominican and Puerto Rican; and Gascón is Spanish.
Users on X, including Mexican actors and cinematographers, argued the film doesn’t accurately portray Mexico, its culture, and people.
Rodrigo Prieto, a Mexican, Oscar-nominated cinematographer who worked on “Barbie,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” told Deadline last November that he was “unhappy” the film was not shot in Mexico and didn’t include more Mexican people in the production.
“The whole thing is completely inauthentic,” Prieto said. “Yes, they had dialogue coaches but I was offended that such a story was portrayed in a way that felt so inauthentic.
“It was just the details for me. You would never have a jail sign that read ‘Cárcel’ it would be ‘Penitenciaria’. It’s just the details, and that shows me that nobody that knew was involved. And it didn’t even matter. That was very troubling to me.”
In December 2024, casting director Carla Hool told a SAG-AFTRA foundation Q&A that her team searched across Mexico and Latin America for the lead roles.
“We wanted to keep it really authentic, but at the end of the day, the best actors who embodied the characters are the ones right here,” Hool said, adding that they changed the backgrounds of Gomez and Saldaña’s characters’ because they aren’t native Mexicans.
This further angered critics.
‘Emilia Pérez’ was snubbed by GLAAD but has received the most Oscar nominations
A Mexican trans filmmaker created a 28-minute parody of ‘Emilia Pérez’ set in France
Gascón accuses people on social media of trying to tear her down
Amy Sussman/Getty Images
On January 28, Folha de S. Paulo, a Brazilian daily newspaper, published a video interview where Gascón said people had torn down her work to highlight that of fellow best actress Oscar nominee, Fernanda Torres.
Representatives for the Academy did not respond to a comment request from Business Insider.
Variety reported on January 29 that the comments do not violate the rule because Gascón did not negatively comment on Torres’ acting performance or film.
Gascón told Variety: “In my recent comments, I was referencing the toxicity and violent hate speech on social media that I sadly continue to experience. Fernanda has been a wonderful ally, and no one directly associated with her has been anything but supportive and hugely generous.”
Gascón faces a backlash after old X posts resurface
Netflix
On January 30, fans and journalists resurfaced posts Gascón shared on X featuring offensive remarks about Islam, Muslims, George Floyd, and Miley Cyrus. The most recent posts were from 2021.
Variety reported that in one post, which has since been deleted, Gascón called the 2021 Oscar ceremony an “Afro-Korean festival” after Daniel Kaluuya, a Black British actor, and Yuh-Jung Youn, a South Korean actor, won awards.
Gascón said in a statement to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter: “I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt. As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”
On January 31, Gascón deleted her X account and shared a lengthy statement with The Hollywood Reporter, which started: “I’m sorry, but I can no longer allow this campaign of hate and misinformation to affect neither my family nor me anymore, so at their request I am closing my account on X.”
Since January 31, Gascón has posted three statements on Instagram and appeared in an hourlong interview with CNN en Español. In these posts and interviews, Gascón denied she was racist or Islamophobic and said some of the posts were fake or taken out of context.
On January 31, Saldaña attended a Q&A in London where the host said Gascón couldn’t attend and asked her to respond to “what’s been said online.”
Saldaña said: “I’m still processing everything that has transpired in the last couple of days, and I’m sad. It makes me really sad because I don’t support and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group.”
Jacques Audiard, the director of ‘Emilia Pérez,’ calls Gascón’s comments ‘inexcusable’
Medios y Media/Getty Images
On Tuesday, Entertainment Weekly reported that Netflix had released a new “Emilia Pérez” poster for award show voters that features the film’s stars and nominations, except for Gascón and her Oscar nod.
Awards panels for the Oscars and others haven’t finished voting, so the controversy may affect the film’s chances of winning awards.
On Wednesday, Audiard told Deadline that Gascón’s old posts were “inexcusable” and said she was “playing the victim.”
“I haven’t spoken to her, and I don’t want to. She is in a self-destructive approach that I can’t interfere in, and I really don’t understand why she’s continuing,” he said, seemingly referring to Gascón’s response to the backlash. “I don’t understand it, and what I don’t understand about this too is why she’s harming people who were very close to her.”
Audiard said that the way Gascón had responded to the backlash was hurting him, her castmates, and everyone else who worked on the film.
When asked about “Emilia Pérez” being criticized for its depictions of cartels and victims of gang violence in Mexico, Audiard said the movie was not intended to be realistic.
“What shocked me is that either people haven’t seen the film properly, or they haven’t seen it at all and are acting in bad faith,” Audiard said. “The representation of the cartels in the film is thematic. It’s not something that I’m particularly focused on in the film. There’s one scene that deals with it. The real thing that I’m interested in, that I was interested in doing, is that I wanted to make an opera.”
While some social media users praised Audiard for criticizing Gascón, others accused him of throwing her to the wolves, and criticized comments Audiard made about the Spanish language that they believed were problematic.
Representatives for Gascón, Netflix, the Academy, and THEM did not immediately respond to a comment request from BI.
