French director Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” first made waves among critics at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, when it won multiple awards. It went on to receive 10 Golden Globe nominations, winning four, including best musical or comedy.
“It is so beautiful to see a movie that is cinema,” gushed Mexican director Guillermo del Toro. Another Mexican filmmaker, Issa López, who directed “True Detective: Night Country,” called it a “masterpiece,” adding that Audiard portrayed issues of gender and violence in Latin America “better than any Mexican facing this issue at this time.”
The film is a musical about a Mexican drug lord named Manitas del Monte, played by trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón. Del Monte hires a lawyer to facilitate her long-awaited gender transition. After her surgery, she fakes her death with her lawyer’s help and sends her wife, Jessi, played by Selena Gómez, and their children to Switzerland. Four years later, Manitas – now known as Emilia Pérez – tries to reunite with her family by posing as Manitas’ distant cousin.
So why is it bombing among Mexican moviegoers?
Modest research into a ‘modest’ language
As a scholar of gender and sexuality in Latin America, I study LGBTQ+ representation in media, particularly in Mexico. So it’s been interesting to follow the negative reaction to a film that critics claim has broken new ground in exploring themes of gender, sexuality and violence in Mexico.
Many of the film’s perceived errors seem self-inflicted.
Audiard admitted that he didn’t do much research on Mexico before and during the filming process. And even though he doesn’t speak Spanish, he chose to use a Spanish script and film the movie in Spanish.
The director told French media outlet Konbini that he chose to make the film in Spanish because it is a language “of modest countries, developing countries, of poor people and migrants.”
Not surprisingly, an early critique of the film centered on its Spanish: It uses some Mexican slang words, but they’re spoken in ways that sound unnatural to native speakers. Then there’s the film’s overreliance on clichés that border on racism, perhaps most egregiously when Emilia’s child sings that she smells of “mezcal and guacamole.”
Of course, an artist need not belong to a culture in order to depict or explore it in their work. Filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein and Luis Buñuel became renowned figures in Mexican cinema despite being born in Latvia and Spain, respectively.
When choosing to explore sensitive topics, however, it is important to take into account the perspective of those being portrayed, both for accuracy’s sake and as a form of respect. Take Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The director collaborated with members of the Osage nation to further the film’s historical and cultural accuracy.
Glossing over the nuance
“Emilia Pérez” centers on how violence stems from the corruption prevalent in Mexico. Multiple musical numbers denounce the collusion between authorities and criminals.
This is certainly true. But to many Mexicans, it feels like an oversimplification of the issue.
The film fails to acknowledge the confluence of factors behind the country’s violence, such as U.S. demand for illegal drugs stemming from its opioid crisis, or the role that American guns play in Mexico’s violence.
Professor and journalist Oswaldo Zavala, who has written extensively about Mexican cartels, argues that the film perpetuates the idea that Latin American countries are solely to blame for the violence of drug trafficking. Furthermore, Zavala contends that this perspective reinforces the narrative that the U.S.-Mexico border needs to be militarized.
The musical features few male characters; the ones who do appear are invariably violent, and this includes Manitas before undergoing their transition. The cruelty of Manitas contrasts with Emilia’s kindness: She helps the “madres buscadoras,” which are the Mexican collectives made up of mothers searching for missing loved ones presumed to be kidnapped or killed by organized crime. One of these collectives, Colectivo de Víctimas del 10 de Marzo, criticized the film for depicting groups like theirs as recipients of money from organized crime and beneficiaries of luxurious galas attended by politicians and celebrities.
The group’s leader, Delia Quiroa, announced that the group would send a letter to the academy to express its condemnation of the film.
Backlash on multiple fronts
These political and cultural blind spots have spurred a backlash among Mexican moviegoers.
When the movie premiered in Mexico in January 2025, it bombed at the box office, with some viewers demanding refunds. Mexico’s Federal Consumer Protection Agency had to intervene after the movie chain Cinépolis refused to honor its satisfaction-guarantee policy.
Mexican writer Jorge Volpi called the movie “one of the crudest and most deceitful films of the 21st century.”
Trans content creator Camila Aurora playfully parodied “Emilia Pérez” in her short film “Johanne Sacrebleu.” In scenes filled with stereotypical French symbols such as croissants and berets, it tells the story of an heiress who falls in love with a member of her family’s business rivals.
While some viewers have nonetheless praised “Emilia Pérez” for its nuanced portrayal of trans women and the casting of a trans actress, the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD described it as “a step backward for trans representation.”
One point of contention is the musical number Emilia sings, “medio ella, medio él,” or “half she, half he,” which insinuates that trans people are stuck between two genders. The movie also seems to portray the character’s transition as a tool for deception.
A social media viper pit
Meanwhile, Gascón’s historic nominations as the first trans actress recognized by the Oscars and other awards have been overshadowed by her controversial statements.
She made headlines when she accused associates of Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres of disparaging her work. Torres is also an Oscar nominee for best actress.
The latest controversy began in late January 2025 when Gascón’s old social media posts resurfaced. The now-deleted messages included attacks on Muslims in Spain and a post calling co-star Selena Gómez a “rich rat,” which Gascón has denied writing.
“Emilia Pérez” is limping into the Oscars. Netflix and Audiard have distanced themselves from Gascón to try to preserve the film’s prospects at the annual Academy Awards ceremony.
It could be too little too late.
Alejandra Marquez Guajardo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
