Nobody from the queer community was rooting for Emilia Pérez to win, but we weren’t expecting the team behind it to betray trans people so utterly as they made off with their two Oscars.
A historical 13 nominations for the musical about a Mexican cartel boss that fakes her death to transition, was followed by a historically cursed Oscars campaign. Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofia Gascón, the first trans woman to be nominated for Best Actress, was persona non grata by the time the 97th Academy Awards rolled around.
Netflix dropped Gascón like a hot potato after a series of gaffs that while condemnable – her old social media posts denigrating Muslims and black people were truly disgusting – could have been avoided with the bare minimum of planning and media training. With its trans star wiped from the posters and dis-invited from awards campaign events, Emilia Pérez pivoted to promoting Zoe Saldaña as its main hope.
At last night’s ceremony Gascón was finally allowed out in public, but only to sit in the audience and be reduced to a punchline. “Anora uses the F word 479 times. That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofia Gascon’s publicist,” quipped host Conan O’Brien.
Saldaña took home Best Supporting Actress, using her speech to focus entirely on on her own heritage. “My grandmother came to this country in 1961,” she said. “I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands, and I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award.”
As Donald Trump’s second administration makes sweeping anti-immigration legislation and highly publicised deportation flights and raids, the subtext of Saldaña’s speech was clear – although migrants shouldn’t have to have Oscar-winning children to prove their worth.
But despite winning for playing a lawyer aiding a woman’s transition, Saldaña had nothing to imply about the plight of trans people in America, who are also facing increased persecution under Trump 2.0. The President signed an executive order last month that means trans people can no longer change their sex marker on their passports. Another executive order has banned federal funding for gender-affirming care for those under 19.
When Emilia Pérez’s Clément Ducol, Camille and director Jacques Audiard accepted the Oscar for Best Song for El Mal, they gave a very general speech about writing the song to “denounce corruption” and music and art being a “force for the good and progress” before – in the cringiest moment of the night – breaking into their own song.
There was also no mention given to the hundreds of thousands of Mexican victims and the families of those disappeared by the cartel bosses like the one their film chose to forgive.
In the press room afterwards Saldaña had to answer awkward questions from a Mexican news outlet about how “hurtful” the film’s depiction of their country had been. “First of all, I’m very, very sorry that you and so many Mexicans felt offended,” Saldaña said, in a classic non-apology. “That was never our intention, we spoke and we came from a place of love and I will stand by that.”
By proving she can stick to a script of empty platitudes, Saldaña secured her reputation with streaming film studios. But at what cost?
Streaming services such as Netflix ended up getting short shift at this ceremony. O’Brien performed a sketch satirising streamers versus cinemas with a cameo from Martin Scorsese. Sean Baker, Anora’s director, used his platform to side-eye streamers. "This is my battle cry. Filmmakers: Keep making films for the big screen. I know I will,” he said. “Distributors: please focus first and foremost on the theatrical releases of your films."
With Netflix already in the doghouse, a little solidarity from the Emilia Perez team would have gone along way. Mikey Madison was quick to centre the persecuted subset of people her performance was based off when accepting the honour for Best Actress for Anora. “I also just want to again recognise and honour the sex worker community,” she said. “I will continue to support and be an ally.”
Anora, like Emilia Pérez, has not been embraced by everyone from the community it claims to represent. Several critics with experience of stripping have elucidated the problems with Sean Baker’s film.
“The politics in Anora are a mile wide and an inch deep with repetitive, trite iterations of a sex worker’s suffering where even her ability to love is stifled by how society marginalizes her,” writes Marla Cruz for Angel Food magazine. “Anora shows us the immiseration of a sex worker but it shirks any responsibility to help the audience understand it.”
Madison also drew criticism for refusing to work with an intimacy coordinator for the film’s many sex scenes, as though the hard-won professional safety net would remove some mystical layer of authenticity. But, as the star, she wasn’t afraid to give her subjects their flowers.
Making films about marginalised communities has always been Oscars bait. Julia Roberts was nominated for Best Actress playing a sex worker in Pretty Woman back in 1990. Baker has now made multiple films about sex workers (Starlet, Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket, and now Anora) and made history last night as the first person to win four Oscars for the same film.
So it was the least the Anora team could do was to acknowledge the strippers who inspired their storytelling. By throwing trans rights under the bus at the last minute, Emilia Pérez sealed its fate as the most disreputable Oscars campaign to ever fumble the bag.
