Emilia Perez Controversy: Why Oscar-Nominated Film Is Facing Backlash

Emilia Perez leads the 2025 pack Oscar hopes with a 13 nominationsbut the film faced various controversies.

Carla Sofia Gascony is at the center of the musical drama as a powerful Mexican mob boss who hires a lawyer (Zoe Saldana) to help her fake her death, and has sex-affirmation surgery. Gascon became the first openly transgender woman to receive Best Actress nominations at both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards.

The director is a French director Jacques Audiard, Emilia Perez The premiere took place in May 2024 at the Cannes Film Festival in France, where it was immediately warmly received. Gascony, Saldagna, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz were awarded the title of best female role Emilia Perez won the jury prize. However, criticism came as soon as the film hit Netflix the following September.

The cast and crew are aware of the controversy, and the director urged people to watch the film before forming their own opinions. “I would like to say to the people involved in this controversy that the film has not even been released in Mexico. They didn’t see it,” Audiard said CNN in Spanish in a January 15 interview while discussing the backlash. “So please, if you want to criticize a film, criticize it after watching it. Then we will discuss.”

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Below are the most controversial points Emilia Perez critics:

Mexican mission

Emilia Perez set in Mexico and dealing with sensitive topics such as drug trafficking, gang violence and missing persons. Critics have pointed out that someone who has not lived in Mexico under such threats may not be the best person to tell such a story, and some have even accused the film of perpetuating stereotypes.

“If there are things that Mexicans find scandalous in Emilia, I apologize,” Audiard told CNN en Español.

It wasn’t just the subject that caused the reaction. Gascon originally from Spainnot Mexico. Paz is the only Mexican actor among the lead actors. The film is also set in Mexico, but Audiard mainly shot Emilia Perez in France.

“I used to come to scout places. At the time, I had every intention of shooting the film here,” Audiard added. “All this is completely, in natural places. But in the end I couldn’t. I even thought that if I can’t do it in natural places, I could do it at Churubusco Studios,” he said. “However, France had more financial resources. But the art director came here to Mexico to do the research. She found many elements. We even came here to Mexico (and) had rehearsals.”

Doubtful Spanish

Many Hispanic viewers raised their eyebrows at Emilia Perez. Audiard wrote the screenplay and French singer Camille wrote the songs, and both had to work with a translator as they do not speak Spanish. The songs and dialogues were criticized as stilted and clumsy, and several social media users pointed out that the English subtitles were not an accurate translation.

“Camille worked with a wonderful translator, Carla Aviles, who is originally from Mexico,” said the director. The New York Times in November. “But we had problems during filming, for example, with Selena’s Spanish accent. She is a Texan. Carla Sofia Gascon speaks Castilian. She is from Madrid. Given that I don’t speak Spanish, the nuances of a Mexican accent versus a Castilian one were lost on me. We had all these problems with the accents, but we fixed them in the edit. We did a lot of dubbing.”

In January, Audiard expressed his appreciation for the language to CNN en Espanol, explaining, “Although I don’t speak Spanish, I think its musicality is very beautiful, and I wanted to do an opera in Spanish.”

Meanwhile, Gomez, who is not fluent in Spanish, has faced backlash for her performance in the film, with critics claiming they can tell she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Eugenio Derbes called her accent “unjustified”, adding: “I feel like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. If she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, she can’t bring any nuance to her acting.”

Gomez responded directly via TikTok in December 2024 “I understand where you’re coming from,” Gomez commented in Spanish. “I apologize. I did the best I could with the time I was given.’ He later apologized for his comments.

Trans Representation

GLAD in one article, Emilia Perez called it a “backward step for trans representation.” The film was noticeably absent from the GLAAD Media Awards nominations on Wednesday, January 22. Laureates are recognized for significant representation of the LGBTQ+ community.

Many trans critics have cited various problems with the film, from the unrealistic portrayal of gender surgery to the way Emilia’s transition seems to be equated with morality.

Autostradl described the film as “unique CIS nonsense” for being filled with overplayed tropes about trans people. “It’s not a matter of offense or omission,” wrote critic Drew Burnett Gregory. “It’s sad. I don’t understand why a film that is so insane in other ways would choose to undermine its strengths with such a shallow understanding of its title character.”

meanwhile, Pink news noted that the biggest offense was that it didn’t feel like an honest transition story at all. “It’s not that trans-presentation has to be perfect, it’s that it has to be serious, and Emilia Perez doesn’t feel serious,” wrote critic Amelia Hansford.

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Use of AI

Sound designer Kirill Goltz said that the artificial intelligence company Respeecher was used to change Gascon’s voice. The director wanted the song, which takes place before Emilia’s gender confirmation surgery, to make Emilia’s voice sound different. They used artificial intelligence to connect the voice of Gascon and Camille, who wrote the musical numbers.

“In the case of Carla Sofia, it was more difficult because there were very difficult parts of the field, especially because she had already made her transition and there were registers that were no longer available to her,” Holtz said in French. during an interview about technology in Cannes.