Right, so what does it say about “Emilia Pérez” that I actually stopped watching right as the lesbian storyline started? Granted, I restarted and eventually finished it because I feel some sort of stupid sacred queer duty to watch all queer Oscar nominees. But, damn, you didn’t make it easy, film.
First things first, the premise of “Emilia Pérez” is like a mezcal-induced game of Mad Libs. What if a ruthless Mexican drug cartel boss was actually a trans woman who after gender affirming care then becomes the savior to the downtrodden people of Mexico that she had formerly murdered with impunity but then reveals herself to still be the abusive monster she was before transition only to wind up a kidnapping caper. And make it a musical. And don’t actually film most of it in Mexico. Or have that many Mexican actors at all. And instead let’s have this French guy who didn’t do any research about Mexico direct it instead. And did we mention Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez are in it for some reason too? And it’s all in Spanish? And the one English-language song has the actual real not fake lyrics: “Hello, very nice to meet you/I'd like to know about sex change operation/I see, I see, I see/Man to woman or woman to man/Man to woman/From penis to vagina.”
Right, so, besides being reductive and convoluted and some French dude’s fever dream about trans existence, it’s also kind of boring. I really wasn’t kidding when I called it a night (before returning to it a couple days later) when Emilia and her new girlfriends met – to give us a wafer-thin lesbian storyline. That’s how uninvested in this film I felt. Mostly, while I believe it’s probably well intentioned on most of the participants' part, “Emilia Pérez” instead plays exactly like a cis-het person made it.
Its current Oscar run (snagging the most with a staggering 13 nominations – like have they actually watched all 2 hours and12 minutes – because I begrudgingly did) reminds me very much of another film some two decades ago – “Crash.” That film, hailed at the time as an important look at race relations by cis-het white Canadian filmmaker Paul Haggis, went on to beat “Brokeback Mountain” for best picture in 2004. Funny how now, more than 20 years later, nobody even mentions “Crash” as a culturally significant film. Funny how that works.
Anyway, I don’t know what movie is gonna take home the shiny naked man this year. I’m sure if “Emilia Pérez” wins lots of cis-het rich white guys in Hollywood will pat themselves on the back for being so inclusive. But what I’d rather see is the work made by and for queer and trans people be acknowledged with this much fanfare and award season love. Seriously, Academy, 13 nominations for this mess yet “I Saw the TV Glow” was right fucking there the whole time. THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME. Anyway, I finally finished “Emilia Pérez,” and that’s all I have to say about that*.
*OK, one more thing, while I applaud the historic nature of Spanish star Karla Sofía Gascón’s nomination, I absolutely do not applaud her past posts Muslims, BLM and the Oscars inclusivity. Anyway, did I mention that “I Saw the TV Glow” was there the whole time instead? Because it didn’t have to be like this, Academy.
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