Karla Sofía Gascón is turning out to be just as controversial as her highly-acclaimed, audience-panned movie musical, Emilia Pérez.
Emilia Pérez, which beat Wicked for best musical comedy or musical at the Golden Globes and scored the most Oscar nominations of any film this year, was already at the center of film Twitter discourse when its star's xenophobic and racists tweets resurfaced on the internet. Here's everything you need to know about Karla Sofía Gascón's potentially Oscar-losing controversy.
Wait, what's the problem with Emilia Pérez?
The Netflix film tells the story of Rita (Zoe Saldaña), a Mexican lawyer hired to help a cartel leader (Gascón) start a new life by faking their death and undergoing gender-affirming surgery. The film itself was directed by Jacques Audiard, a cis male French man.
Though the film's received accolades from Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globes, and other Hollywood organizations, many believe it mischaracterized every community depicted in the thriller, from Mexicans to trans women.
While Selena Gomez has been criticized for her Spanish, LGBTQ voices have been denouncing the film's depiction of the main character's transition, with GLAAD describing it as a “step backward for trans representation.”
Beyond its controversial subjects, the film only received a 19% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It also doesn't help that the filmmakers utilized AI to improve Gascón's vocals, blending her voice with French pop star Camille, per Forbes.
Karla Sofía Gascón's troubles started before her tweets went public.
Gascón was already facing backlash for her response to the film's LGBTQ critics. “Being LGBTQ, having those labels, does not remove your stupidity, just like heterosexuality does not remove your stupidity,” she told Vanity Fair on January 6. "What bothers me is that the people that say things like that just sitting down at home doing nothing. If you don't like it, go and make your own movie. Go create the representation you want to see for your community."
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