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Emilia Pérez The peloton of 2025 Oscar leads hopeful with no fewer than 13 nominations, but the film has confronted various controversies.
Karla Sofía Gascón is central to the musical drama as a powerful Mexican Mafia boss that hires a lawyer (Zoe Balaña) To help her force her death and to undergo gender-confirming operation. Gascón became the first openly transgender woman to scored nominations for the best actress at both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards.
Directed by the French director Jacques Audiard” Emilia Pérez In May 2024, premiered at the France Film Festival, where it immediately received a hot reception. Gascón, Balaña, Selena Gomez And Adriana Paz were honored with the best actress while Emilia Pérez received the jury prize. However, criticism came as soon as the film Netflix met in September.
The cast and crew are aware of the controversies and the director has encouraged people to see the film before they form opinions. “I would like to tell people who participate in this controversy that the film was not even released in Mexico. They didn’t see it,” said Audiard CNN and Español In an interview of January 15 while discussing the return. “So, please if you want to criticize the movie, criticize it after you have seen it. Then we will discuss it.”
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Below are the biggest points of slams under Emilia Pérez Critics:
Mexican representation
Emilia Pérez takes place in Mexico and tackles sensitive topics such as drug trafficking, gangweld and missing people. Critics note that someone who has not lived in Mexico under such threats may not be the best person to tell such a story, and some even accused the film of perpetuating stereotypes.
“If there are things that Mexicans find shameful in Emilia, I apologize,” Audiard told CNN and Español.
It is not only the subject that caused the recoil. Gascón comes from Spain, not Mexico. Paz is the only actor born in Mexico among the leads. The film also takes place in Mexico – but Audiard largely filmed Emilia Pérez in France.
“I came to exploratory locations. At that moment I intended to film the film here,” Audiard added. “Everything, in its entirety, in natural locations. But in the end I couldn’t do it. I even thought that when I couldn’t do it in natural locations, I could do it in Churubusco Studios,” he said. “However, there were more financial provisions in France. But the artistic director came to Mexico to do research. She found many elements. We even came to Mexico here [and] Have rehearsals. ‘
Doubtful Spanish
Many Spanish -speaking viewers raised their eyebrows while watching Emilia Pérez. Audiard wrote the script and the French singer Camille wrote the songs, and both had to work with a translator because neither of them speak. The songs and dialogue have been criticized as curved and awkward, and various users of social media have noticed that the English subtitles are not exact translations.
“Camille worked with a great translator, Karla Aviles, who is Mexican,” the director said The New York Times In November. “But during the shoot, for example, we had problems with Selena’s accent in Spanish. She is Texan. Karla Sofía Gascón speaks Castilian Spanish. She comes from Madrid. Given that I did not speak Spanish, the nuances of the Mexican accent versus the Castilian lost on me.
Audiard expressed his appreciation for the language to CNN and Espanol in January and explained: “Although I don’t speak Spanish, I think the musicality is very beautiful and I wanted to do an opera in Spanish.”
In the meantime, Gomez, who is not fluently fluent, has confronted with a recoil for her performance in the film with critics who claim that they can see that she does not know what she is saying. Eugenio derbez called her accent ‘indefensible’, and added: ‘I have the feeling that she does not know what she is saying. If she doesn’t know what she says, she can’t give her a nuance. “
Gomez responded directly via Tiktok in December 2024. “I understand where you come from,” Gomez noted in Spanish. “I’m sorry. I did as well as possible with the time I got.” He later apologized for his comments.
Trans -display
Shift Called Emilia Pérez “A Step Backward for Trans representation” in one article. The film was noticeable in the nominations for the Glaad Media Awards on Wednesday 22 January. The Honorees are praised for a meaningful representation of the LGBTQ+ community.
Many transcritics have cited various problems with the film, from the unrealistic representation of sex treatment to the way in which the transition from Emilia seems to be equated with morality.
Car councils Cut the film as “unique CIS zonzin” because they were filled with over -played tropics over transmensen. “It’s not about attacking or something that is not allowed,” wrote critic Drew Burnett Gregory. “It’s boring. I don’t understand why a film that is so crazy in other ways, chooses to undermine its strengths with this superficial understanding of its titular character.”
In the meantime, Pink news It was noted the biggest attack that it didn’t feel like an honest story about transition at all. “The point is not that transvertical representation must be perfect, but that it must be serious, and Emilia Pérez does not feel serious,” wrote critic Amelia Hansford.
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Use of AI
Sound designer Cyril Holtz said that an artificial intelligence company respector was used to change the voice of Gascón. For a song that took place before the gender-confirming operation of Emilia, the director wanted to sound the voice of Emilia Anders. They used AI to combine the voice of Gascón and Camille, which wrote the musical songs.
“In the case of Karla Sofía it was more complicated because there were really parts of the field that were extremely difficult, especially because she had made her switch and there were registers who were no longer accessible to her,” said Holtz in French during an interview about technology at Cannes.
Gascón’s earlier social media activities
The star of the film began to receive widespread recoil in January 2025 after previous reports on social media have surfaced online and were translated by multiple points of sale. Some of the messages, which already went in 2016, were written about Muslim people in her native Spain, together with criticism of George Floydwho was killed by a police officer in 2020. Other messages were aimed at different religions. Gascón also hit the Oscars from 2021 in a separate post.
“If someone in a marginalized community, I know that this suffering is all too good and I am sorry deep for those I have caused pain,” Gascón shared in a statement via Netflix, according to the Associated Press. “All my life I fought for a better world. I believe that light will always triumph over darkness.”
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos told Variety In March 2025 he would work with the star again if the opportunity occurs. “Yes. You have to have some grace when people make mistakes, and we have mercy,” he said.
He added that social media transmission usually does not dive deep into someone’s profile. “What we usually are for screening are usually newspaper heads,” he explained. “Have someone’s social media things previously created the headlines? Again, I’m not on Twitter, so I’m not going in and look at someone else’s Twitter.”