It may come as a surprise that there is a movie musical that currently has more awards promotion than this one evil. Emilia Perez quietly landed on Netflix last month (and, A A little too loud, film buffs on X) After creating a stir at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize and the first Best Actress Award. Earlier this week, Jacques Audiard received the photo 10 Golden Globe nominationsThe most for a film this year, including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy For an awards race that is still up in the air, the musical seems to be among the most locked in.
But it is Emilia Perez — a film about a cartel leader who gets gender-affirming surgery and escapes a life of crime — actually good?
Like many stories that mine the grim realities of oppressed communities, critics and awards organizations have rushed to praise the “avant garde” film for its exploration of trans identity and Mexico’s drug war. Glowing reviews praised “bravery“and”OriginalityA trippy, Spanish-language musical by French filmmaker Audiard to center the characters on the “provocative” subject. Meanwhile, ordinary people at least According to LetterboxdLow is high on the film, and many queer critics are concerned if not outright baffled by its existence.
In a story for The Cut, writer Aaron Walker criticized Emilia Perezuse of Trans identity as an “inherently redemptive” tool For its criminal hero. An article in Autostraddle called the film the most “unique sis nonsense you’ll ever see”. Even the LGBTQ organization GLAAD did Condemnation Film as bad trance representation.
still, Emily PAndRageIts appearance in the Oscar race isn’t a shock at all, as it falls into a category of movies that Hollywood’s white establishment likes to celebrate: untold stories about people on the margins of society that allow viewers to feel socially conscious through their use of stereotypes and political messaging. Without challenge. can Emilia Perez For this year crush?
what actually Emilia Perez?
Adapted from Audiard’s opera libretto of the same name and based on the 2019 Boris Razon novel listen, Emily PAndRage Basically a rock musical about three Mexican women whose lives are turned upside down when one of them, Emilia (Carla Sofia Gascon), decides to transition. The film opens with Rita (Zoe Saldana), a Dominican defense lawyer fed up with Mexico’s corrupt, misogynist legal system. After getting a prominent media personality to murder his wife, he is kidnapped by Emilia (then known as “Manitas”), who enlists Rita to help him escape from the cartel in exchange for a large sum of cash.
This exit strategy essentially involves conversion. Emilia has been desired since childhood but is curiously employed as a means to help her avoid accountability for her crimes. Rita reluctantly agrees, arranging for Emilia to undergo several gender-affirming surgeries, all performed at once (usually, such procedures done over time) He also relocates Emilia’s wife Jessie (Selena Gomez) and their two sons. Years later, when Emilia decides she wants to be reunited with Jesse and her children, she asks Rita to bring them back to Mexico City to share a house with her, choosing her children’s aunt to look after them. Feeling guilty about his past life of crime, he recruits Rita for another venture, a non-profit that locates the bodies of cartel victims and notifies their families.
If that wasn’t plot enough, the lives of these characters become more chaotic, violent, and ultimately tragic thanks to Emilia’s uncontrolled and selfish passions. A more nuanced movie would zoom in on Emilia’s psyche as she navigates her desires and conflicting morals. Instead, the audience is left to scramble to the ruins.
A “progressive” film with regressive tropes
Despite Gascon’s efforts to add some charm to the role, Emilia is written as a comical if not entirely despicable character, with Audiard using her trans identity as a narrative shield for her behavior rather than engaging with her as a full human being. The disingenuous attempt to portray Emilia in a sympathetic light does not balance the growth of her character that occurs throughout the film.
“Many of these problems stem from adapting a chapter that is ostensibly about a cartel leader using transition as a means of escape,” said critic Juan Berquin, who reviewed Emilia Perez for little white lie. “You realize you might be accused of being transphobic, so you try to smooth it over by hiring a trans actress and correcting some beats without looking at how other parts of the script reflect transness negatively.”
in Emilia PerezAudiard makes some effort to inform the audience of Emilia’s lifelong dream of womanhood. It’s a change from the chapter in Razon’s novel that the film is based on, according to Barquin, in which a drug trafficker transforms only to escape the cartel, modeling himself after his first love.
Even with Audiard’s nonsensical attempts to verify Emilia’s gender identity, it is largely played as a disguise throughout the movie. The moments when Emilia’s “mask” slips around her family seem like scenes ripped off Tootsie or Mrs. Doubtfire. When he becomes angry and violent towards Jessie, his voice reverts to a deep, gravelly tone. There is nothing to distinguish this portrayal from harmful anti-trans rhetoric that suggests trans women are insidious actors who harm cis women.
Barquin also noted that the movie’s preoccupation with transness is focused only on the “external alterity of treatment”, as well as presenting only two sexual options, male and female. These flaws are best captured in a silly, Busby Berkeley-inspired number (“La Vaginoplasty”) in which a plastic surgeon lists all the gender-affirming procedures available to Emilia for Rita. In a viral moment of the sequence, she brazenly sings, “Male to female, penis to vagina!”
Emilia PerezThe portrayal of Mexican culture feels equally backward and lazy. Mexico is presented as an unavoidably violent and tragic place. Meanwhile, references to one character’s Mexican identity include smells like tequila and guacamole. Seemingly little effort was made to ensure that the film’s language was accurately spoken. This resulted in Criticism of Gomez.
“He looks like he doesn’t really understand what he’s saying, which arguably extends to the director who doesn’t really understand the language either,” says Barquin.
For a supposedly unorthodox story, the movie doesn’t challenge any of the stereotypical narratives about the drug trade that are already prevalent in popular Western media and politics. this”Narco-narrativeFailing to exaggerate the nuances of the drug trade, particularly the political role of the Global North, and the authority of drug traffickers in Mexico. Instead, the film revels in this violence, using it to portray both “realism” and melodrama. The audience will see this when the movie ends with a climactic shootout.
Emilia Perez The most stereotypical Oscar movie ever
If history is any predictor, all of this creates problems Emilia Perez A huge threat to Oscar nominations comes next month. If it gets the kind of nominations it gets from the Globes, it’s likely to pick up some awards, especially at the event. It’s become an Oscars trope that, every few years, a thoughtless film tackling “important issues” becomes a favorite among Academy voters, who pat themselves on the back to celebrate what they believe to be diversity and political art in a highly whitewashed industry. .
In this questionable political segment the movie features other figures dealing with somewhat melodramatic versions of the struggle. 2008 film by Danny Boyle Slumdog Millionaire It took home eight Oscars, including Best Picture, while facing backlash from Critics in India How it represents the country’s urban poverty, as well as the academy’s reluctance to celebrate films by Indian filmmakers. Sometimes, they’re clunky messages about tolerance that inevitably focus more on the pressures of privileged characters. Best Picture Winner 2019 green bookan opposite Driving Miss DaisyRecently this has become notorious. Sometimes, they’re ham-fisted allegories about racism, like the Best Action Short winner the skin.
The Academy has also shown respect to many White/cis/hetero savior stories, Like 2009 The blind sideAbout a white family that adopts NFL player Michael Oher and 2011 helpAbout a white woman (Emma Stone) who uncovers the stories of black domestic workers in the Jim Crow South. of 2013 Dallas Buyers ClubWhere a gay cowboy with HIV/AIDS illegally gains access to other patients’ drugs, the academy’s narrative also folds.
Its complex messaging Emilia Perez Perhaps the most memorable of the 2005 Best Picture winners crush. Paul Haggis movie, which arguably beat it Brokeback MountainAfter 9/11 Los Angeles attempted to reveal the levels of prejudice The problem was, he had no idea how racism actually worked in society, leveling the nation’s systemic racial divisions down to personal pettiness. Emilia Perez An equally reductive look at trans and Latino/Latina identities that has no idea what it wants to say about its desolate characters. Instead, it offers a lot of confusion and hardly any compassion.
Soon under a president who gained power by attacking American politics in part Trans And Mexican populationIt will be interesting to see if there will be a more rigorous engagement with it Emilia Perez Throughout the awards season. Although history has shown, it’s more convenient for Hollywood’s awards bodies to celebrate that the “diversity” offering falls into their laps first, often leaving the most insightful stories about underdogs unnoticed. for now, Emilia Perez Seems like an ideal pick for Best Picture: tragic, daring and profoundly out of touch.
