Untangling the Controversial Web that is Emilia Pérez by Alice Frost
Tue Mar 2025Whether an avid cinephile, awards season enthusiast or just an occasional cinema-goer, you’ve no doubt heard a lot about one film in particular recently: Emilia Pérez.
The Spanish-language French musical-thriller-crime-operatic-drama film (already a lot to unpack) has become a hot topic of conversation over the past few months, and for more than one reason – from its groundbreaking 13 Oscar nominations, to lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón’s series of recently-resurfaced offensive posts on X; from the film’s use of AI to enhance some of the cast’s singing voices, to its inauthentic and harmful depictions of Mexico and trans people – let’s get into it.
Emilia Pérez tells the story of Rita, played by Zoe Saldaña, a struggling lawyer in Mexico who’s enlisted by a notorious cartel leader to help them disappear and transition into a woman, the film’s titular character, Emilia, played by Karla Sofía Gascón. Selena Gomez also stars as Emilia’s ex-wife and mother of their children, Jessi. What ensues is two hours and twenty minutes of musical numbers about gender-affirming surgery, severed fingers and a fiery car crash.
Cannes, Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd and beyond
When Emilia Pérez premiered at Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, it received an 11-minute standing ovation. However, standing ovations – often varying in length – are a custom at Cannes and therefore not necessarily an indication of how well-received a film will be with a wider audience and later on during awards season. Previous Oscar winner for Best Picture, Parasite, received an eight minute standing ovation in 2019, but last year’s Megalopolis – or ‘Megaflopolis’ – received a seven-minute ovation, but was panned by critics. It’s therefore hardly surprising that Emilia Pérez had Cannes attendees on their feet for over 10 minutes, but has completely divided wider audiences and critics since its release.
Upon its premiere on Netflix in November 2024, the initial response from critics was overwhelmingly positive. Denis Villeneuve, James Cameron and Meryl Streep were amongst some of the big names praising the film. Currently – as of February 2025 – Emilia Pérez has a critics score of 72% on Rotten Tomatoes, but with audiences it sits on the total opposite end of the scale, with a score of 17%. Never has a Best Picture nominee had such an apparent polar divide between critics and audiences. This is most evident on Letterboxd – a social platform for logging films – where Emilia Pérez is the worst reviewed Best Picture Oscar nominee in history.
The film currently has a dismal 2.1 average rating on Letterboxd
Emilia Pérez and Mexico
There’s been a significant amount of criticism aimed towards what many have regarded as the trivialisation of the drug-related violence and mass disappearances that have taken place in Mexico. Mexican actor, Mauricio Martínez, denounced the film online with a statement that read:
“…portraying a Mexico full of stereotypes, ignorance, lack of respect and profiting from one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the world… The fact that the actors don’t even speak Spanish is the least of the problematic issues”.
Responding to criticism, Emilia Pérez’s writer and director, Jacques Audiard, said, “It’s a tragedy that’s largely invisible outside of Mexico, and my goal was to generate dialogue, not offense.” In another interview, when asked if he’d done much research about Mexico before making the film, Audiard stated: “I kinda already knew what I had to understand.” Mexican audiences, who have already come down pretty hard on this film, would likely disagree, with many having demanded refunds since watching.
One user on X wrote: “Emilia Pérez makes history as the winner of Best Film in Non-English Language for being the first to be written with Google Translator!”
Adding fuel to what’s already a rather roaring fire of a film, filming took place almost entirely in a French studio, not in Mexico, and Audiard, who is French, doesn’t speak any Spanish – though perhaps this wasn’t such a shock to Spanish-speaking critics who have highlighted multiple errors in the language. In one particular scene, which garnered a lot of attention online, audiences pointed out a blunder in word-choice in which the English translation reads, “My p***y still hurts when I think of you” when she says “pinche vulva” which actually translates to “f***ing vulva”.
Mexican cinematographer and director, Rodrigo Prieto, also expressed his disapproval with the film’s authenticity in an interview, stating:
“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.”
The seeming disregard for accuracy and authenticity is also evident in the film’s casting with only one Mexican actor featured in the main cast – Adriana Paz plays Emilia’s lover, Epifanía, in a supporting role. Casting director, Carla Hool, claimed that despite searching for actors in Mexico, they couldn’t find any deemed suitable to join the main cast: “We wanted to keep it really authentic but at the end of the day, the best actors who embodied these characters are the ones that are right here [Gascón, Saldana and Gomez]”. Gascón is Spanish, Saldaña is American (with Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage) and Gomez is also American, (with Mexican and Italian heritage).
On the topic of authenticity, there’s also the issue of the film’s use of AI. Voice cloning was used to enhance Gascón’s vocal register and blend with Camille, a French pop star who also penned a lot of the film’s songs. The use of AI in films has conjured up questions around whether or not its use is ethical and if a film should even be considered for awards if the production has been aided by AI, which in itself could be a completely separate conversation. For now, it doesn’t seem to have impacted Emilia Pérez’s awards season run, including picking up the Soundtrack Award at Cannes and two Best Original Song nominations at the Oscars.
The trans community have also raised some issues
Trans critics of the film have also stated that Emilia Pérez is simply not good transgender representation and includes several regressive stereotypes. Before breaking down the criticism this film has received for its representation of trans people, it’s certainly worth noting that the casting of a trans woman in a trans role is progress (see: The Danish Girl and Transamerica), and Gascón becoming the first trans person to receive a nomination for an acting award at the Oscars is no-doubt a landmark achievement. However, members of the trans community have critiqued the inclusion of several falsehoods and problematic tropes, including when Emilia reacts aggressively towards her ex-wife Jessi, the register of her voice drops to a much lower one, similar to how she sounded pre-surgery, and feeds into one of the most problematic stereotypes of trans women being violent.
Other problematic trans tropes that featured in the film as highlighted by critics, include the transition being treated as the death of a character, the abandonment of family to pursue transition and the transperson being referred to as half male/half female, and many more.
And then there’s ‘La Vaginoplastia’, the musical number which sees Rita wandering around a Bangkok hospital, questioning a doctor about gender-affirming surgery. The scene went viral on social media, with people reacting in disbelief that the song was even real. Whilst labelled ‘insensitive’ and ‘a startlingly simplistic explanation of gender-affirming surgery, one reddit user also explained why for them this particular scene felt voyeuristic:
“…as a trans woman, the reason I hate the vaginoplasty song is because of how voyeuristic it is – there is often an over focus on trans people’s surgeries and bodies in a way that often leads to fetishization and dehumanization, and the way the film makes her transition all about her surgeries reinforces this idea that transness is purely medical. It feels very much made for a cis audience, and not a trans one.”
Those posts from Gascón
The most recent twist in the Emilia Pérez rollercoaster of a campaign trail wasn’t a direct criticism of the film, instead it was the resurfacing of a series of offensive posts that Gascón published between 2020 and 2021 on X. A stream of indefensible posts saw Gascón make offensive remarks about Muslims, Chinese people, George Floyd and diversity at the Oscars.
Since the posts were discovered by journalist Sarah Hagi, Gascón has apologised saying, “As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain.” Audiard initially criticised Gascón’s posts, labelling them as ‘hateful’ and said that she was ‘playing the victim’. More recently, Audiard thanked the actress during an acceptance speech at the Baftas: “I also thank you Karla Sofía, who I kiss.”
Netflix had previously ceased contact with Gascón and stopped covering her travel expenses to attend various awards shows. However, Gascón did attend the Oscars ceremony on 3rd March where she was nominated for Best Actress, for which Netflix allegedly agreed to cover her travelling costs. Gascón didn’t however walk the red carpet, nor did she get away unscathed, when host Conan O’Brien made her publicist the punchline of one of his opening monologue jokes.
Despite the total PR nightmare Gascón posts bought upon the film’s awards season campaign, and most definitely ruling out any chance Gascón ever had of winning the Oscar – Mikey Maddison took home the win for Anora – it doesn’t seem to have impacted Saldaña’s awards run at all. Described as ‘the role of her career’ and a ‘career defining moment’, Saldaña has had a clean sweep this year, picking up every major award for Best Supporting Actress.
Two things can be true at once: we can celebrate trans representation, and seeing the stories of marginalised people on screen, but we can also demand that said representation be better. Long after awards season is over and once a new roster of films captures our attention for 2025, only time will tell what Emilia Pérez’s impact and legacy will be.