The war of words between Mexico and France over trans gangster musical Emilia Pérez has heated up even more after the release of a spoof film called Johanne Sacreblu poking fun at French stereotypes.
Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard and which is up for the best picture Oscar along with a best actress nomination for its star Karla Sofia Gascón, is the story of a cartel boss who hires a lawyer (played by Zoe Saldaña) to enable a gender transition, and has attracted much criticism in Mexico, where it is supposedly set.
In response, Mexican trans film-maker Camila Aurora posted a 30-minute video on social media, which features dancers and actors dressed in fake moustaches, wearing berets and striped T-shirts, in a comic story about a romance between the trans heirs of rival croissant and baguette-producing families. Screenwriter Héctor Guillén was also involved in the project; Guillén had previously led attacks on Emilia Pérez, calling it “racist Eurocentric mockery”.
Criticism of Emilia Pérez has come from many directions. The film’s seeming lack of authenticity has come under fire; it was shot in a studio in France by a writer-director who doesn’t speak Spanish, and has only one Mexican actor, Adriana Paz, in its principal cast. (Gascón is Spanish, while Saldaña and co-star Selena Gomez were both born in the US.) It has also been accused of trivialising the scale of violence in the country’s drug wars, in which at least 350,000 are thought to have died since 2006.
Emilia Pérez has also attracted criticism for the portrayal of its trans central character. The LGBTQ+ advocacy group Glaad called it “a profoundly retrograde portrayal of a trans woman”.
On its Mexican premiere, Audiard apologised for the furore, saying the film was an “opera” and “if there are things that seem shocking in Emilia Pérez then I am sorry”.
