My Thoughts On Emilia Peréz, Karla Sofía Gascón and The Harm They Each Do To Mexican and Trans Communities (And Every Other Marginalized Community), As A Gender Non-Conforming Afro-Mexican Indigenous American:
(trigger warning: discussions of racism, racism and xenophobia towards African Americans, Asians, Latinos, Indigenous folks, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, classism, casteism, Islamophobia, Christophobia, anti Blackness, anti Asian racism, anti Mexican racism, anti Indigenous racism, antisemitism, H*tler apologism, cartel violence and transphobic hate crimes)
Before getting into my review of and thoughts on the recent Oscar nominated Netflix film Emilia Peréz, I just wanna state a disclaimer:
*Regardless of people's criticisms of the movie's poor Mexican representation and lack of input from Mexicans into the writing, directing, production, etc., saying that "none of the actresses are Mexican" is something I strongly disagree with when Selena Gomez is indeed Mexican American and a mixed race Mexican American, thus making people's claims extremely hypocritically inaccurate, offensive, incorrect and disrespectful, especially as an Afro-Mexican American; so that's not gonna be tolerated in any comments on this post.
Now that that's out of the way, I'll just jump straight into it: I'm gonna be totally frank and say that I initially bought into the hype of Emilia Perez, for a number of reasons: for starters, Selena Gomez was in it and I was rooting for her and Zoe Saldana (whom I admire as an actress) to win with this movie. Then, on paper, the story itself initially sounded very compelling and interesting and the promise of it taking artistic and creative risks of blending genres and the film being an amalgamation of drama, action, romance and musical alongside having Mexican, queer and trans representation was what also ultimately got me hyped to see it, and Karla Sofía Gascón being the first openly trans actress to be nominated for an Oscar in a lead role made it even more promising. And, to be even more honest, I initially loved the film when I watched it--heck, I watched it numerous times and even defended it from people whom I initially perceived were just being negative for the sake of being negative. When I was wearing hype fueled rose colored glasses, that is. Then I started to watch and listen to perspectives and level headed critcisms from people from the very communities that the movie claimed to represent but ended up poorly misrepresenting and offending--specifically, Mexican folks and trans folks, and Mexican trans folks especially, and overall filmmakers, writers, artists and storytellers that pointed out both the offensive stereotyping and misrepresentation of each marginalized community and the problematic faulty structure of the story, plot, characters, its handling of the musical aspect, etc., and afterwards I started to ease those rose colored glasses off and see and understand what everyone was saying. Then I found out about the director Jacques Audiard's condescending, racist and belitting comments about Mexico, Mexican people, Mexican culture and the Spanish language which, among everything else I mentioned, made me start to dislike the movie and further back away from supporting it.
Then the lead actress Karla Sofia Gascon's old racist, casteist, ableist, xenophobic, transphobic, homophobic, fatphobic, Islamophobic, Christophobic, anti Black, anti Asian, anti Mexican, anti Indigenous, antisemitic, white supremacist and Hitler/nazi apologist tweets got unearthed and exposed. After that, the movie immediately aged like a platter of seafood doused in milk and left to sit out in the sun inside of a hot car trunk on a 99 degrees summer day.
And now for me, especially as a believer in Christ and a mixed race Afro-Latina Mexican/Mexican Native American, Afro-Asian, Afro-Indigenous and Jewish, autistic, disabled, neurodivergent and gender non-conforming femme of color, the rose colored glasses are completely off and now I hate the movie entirely, and I think that it and Karla should be disqualified from winning anything. And Karla herself should have her Golden Globe award and her Oscar nominations rescinded and revoked, and she should also be permanently blacklisted from the movie industry and not ever have a career or any career opportunities ever again. Given the political climate the U.S. in currently in right now, extremist bigotry and discrimination of any kind and especially to that venomous degree that Karla displayed, should not be overlooked, excused or rewarded.
And as for Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana, no hate towards either of them, but now in hindsight and retrospect, Zoe and Selena made a huge mistake choosing to do this movie and it'll probably result in a bigger staining on their reputation for a very long while (on Zoe's part as she's already polarizing in the Black community after she wore blackface in the shoddy film about Nina Simone and has now done a film that's now also offensive to Latinos too and Afro-Latinos in particular, and thus simultaneously offensive to monoracial African American women and Afro-Latinas especially*; and on Selena's part as she's also polarizing and controversial in the Latino community and this movie will further strain her public standing with and reputation amongst the Latino community).
(*Note: speaking of which, while it's important to call out the movie's reinforcing of harmful transphobia and transmisogyny and racist, xenophobic stereotypes of Mexico, Mexican people, language and culture and Mexican Americans, what critics and reviewers seem to be missing and not mentioning is how the film's treatment of Zoe Saldana's character Rita Castro, an Afro-Latina (Dominican) woman of color, feeds into problematic, harmful, racist and offensive stereotypes too: Rita, a Black Afro-Latina woman of color, is initially positioned to be the main character of the movie but then ends up getting side lined in her own story and reduced to being nothing more than Emilia Perez's token black sidekick or best friend whose own character and story arc regarding her background, career, love life and overall interior life is left unexplored and unresolved with no depth and no development at all--though even calling Rita the Token Black Female Best Friend would be a slight upgrade (still trite and icky nonetheless, but still), as she's not even treated as that and is rather relegated to being the errands woman constantly running after Emilia and either cleaning up and fixing her messes for her or getting dragged into the middle of Emilia's messes, and even more disturbingly, a punching bag who bares the brunt of Emilia's violence, threats and coercion before Emilia's transition, and is basically--and as much as I hate to say it but have to say it nonetheless to drive home the point of another harmful negative stereotype that the movie reinforces that others seem to miss or ignore--treated as and reduced to being the mule. And whatever scraps of a character and story arc the viewer does get of Rita is only framed within the lens of struggle, exhaustion, unhappiness, being left unackowledged, mistreated, abused, threatened, underappreciated and unappreciated, with no independent interior life, agency, autonomy or arc of her own, no love interest of her own and no personality of her own, reinforcing not only the black female sidekick/best friend and mule stereotypes but also the undesirable black female spinster stereotype, and further driven home by the film's ending when Rita is left to care for Emilia and Jessi's sons after Emilia, Jessi and Gustavo all die in a car accident, which also reduces Rita to the even more offensive maid/mammy stereotype. So Rita, an Afro-Latina female character, is reduced to all the classic anti black racist and misogynoir fueled stereotypes: the token sidekick/best friend, the mule, the maid, the figurative punching bag on which violence and coercion is enacted, the loveless undesirable spinster and the mammy. So this film is also guilty of also reinforcing and perpetuating anti black racism and anti black xenophobia and misogynoir towards Black women, whether monoracial African American women or Afro-Latina/Afro-Latina American women.
So since Mexican and Mexican American folks can watch this film and feel offended, disrespected and dehumanized, trans folks can watch this film and feel offended, disrespected and dehumanized, and since Mexican and Mexican American trans folks can watch this film and feel offended, disrespected and dehumanized, since Black folks--both monoracial African American folks and Afro-Latino/Afro-Latino American folks can watch this film and feel offended, disrespected and dehumanized, and since especially Black women, both monoracial African American women and Afro-Latina/Afro-Latina American women, particularly Afro-Mexican/Afro-Mexican American women can watch this film and feel offended, disrespected and dehumanized, then imagine how monoracial African American trans women, Afro-Latina/Afro-Latina American trans women, and Afro-Mexican/Afro-Mexican American trans women especially, can feel offended, disrespected and dehumanized by watching this movie (and more so considering that real life incidents of racial and gender based violence towards Black women, and especially racially targeted, gender based and transphobic violence and hate crimes towards African American and Afro-Latina/Afro-Latina trans women, are through the roof right now).
And considering that Karla's tweets also perpetuate anti-blackness, particularly her hateful and ugly comments disparaging and mocking George Floyd and his death, this context is particularly relevant and it matters, especially to me as an Afro-Latina/Afro-Mexican and Afro-Indigenous American. And as someone who's also a Jew of color, Karla's particularly vile and evil endorsement and defense of H*tler and neo nazi fascism and overall antisemitism really felt like a chilling and stinging additional gut punch and the final straw.
In conclusion, don't watch Emilia Perez. Don't support Emilia Perez. Don't support director Jacques Audiard. And especially do NOT support Karla Sofía Gascón and do NOT defend her. And shame on Netflix for ignoring, dismissing, silencing and censoring Mexican and trans critics that call this out.
Support actual Mexican and Mexican American creators. Support trans creators. Support African American and Afro-Latinx creators. Support Mexican and Mexican American trans creators. Support African American and Afro-Latinx trans creators. Just don't support director Jacques Audiard and his movie Emilia Perez or its bigoted lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón, and instead boycott all of them.
