Cringey ‘Emilia Pérez’ Clip Roasted After Golden Globes Wins

Emilia Pérez was the big winner at Sunday night’s Golden Globe Awards, taking four categories including Best Musical or Comedy Film and Best International Film. Conventional wisdom is that the windfall skyrockets the Netflix musical to frontrunner status for Best Picture at the Oscars. It also primes the film for what typically accompanies that designation: becoming award season’s biggest villain.

Every award season, a major contender emerges as the film that the Very Online among movie fans love to hate, for various reasons on a spectrum of legitimacy and fairness. Sometimes it seems to tangibly affect a movie’s awards hopes. (See: Maestro last year.) Sometimes it doesn’t matter at all. (Dear God, Green Book.)

Especially after its Globes haul, the Emila Pérez dissent, which had already been bubbling throughout the fall festival season, has been amplified.

The film, which can now be streamed on Netflix, is a largely Spanish-language musical written and directed by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard. It centers around a Mexican cartel leader who enlists the help of a lawyer to help her relocate and rebuild her life safely, and then achieve her dream of transitioning to a woman. (Again, it’s a musical…) Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Karla Sofía Gascón star, with Gascón currently predicted to be the first transgender performer to be nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars.

The wild swings in tone, set to song, isn’t for everybody. And there has been a groundswell of criticism over what some argue is the film’s superficial handling—or, some say, mishandling—of gender and cultural identity.

After Sunday night’s Globes telecast, one clip of a musical number in particular has gone viral and, at least out of context, is being roasted as proof that the film doesn’t deserve its accolades.

In the clip, Saldaña’s character speak-sings (raps?) with doctors because she wants “to learn about sex-change operations.” As they do a choreographed walk through a hospital patient bay, the doctor explains, “Man to woman. Woman to man.” And then, deepening his voice for flair, “Penis to vaginaaaaaaa.”

The clip is, again, out of context from the rest of the film, and therefore especially cringey. That also makes it, however, perfect fodder for Emilia Pérez critics to roast the film and complain about its awards sweep.

“*this* winning over wicked in this particular category is laughable,” one X user posted. “THIS just won the #goldenglobe for best picture over anora, the substance, wicked and challengers…” another posted.

For people who haven’t seen the film, the viral clip isn’t making the best first impression: “this is the first clip i’ve ever seen of emilia perez (not even watched the trailers) and what on earth is this.”

Those who have seen the movie are more specific and pointed in their critiques.

“Emilia Perez a film about mexicans, directed by a french man, played by americans, with a protagonist from spain, with a sinopsis [sic] that portrays harmful stereotypes of mexican/latin culture, winning best international film seems like a joke,” one user posted.

“For my friends who follow me but aren’t tapped into movies as much this movie is technically the front runner for winning the Oscar now, a transphobic liberal co-opt of gender and race in a year filled with incredible movies about trans and poc stories,” posted another.

Reactions to the clip and the movie’s Globes success have otherwise run the gamut from shock at the content of the scene to bemusement over the inevitable backlash its awards haul would get from people on Film Twitter.

It remains to be seen what effect Globes night will have on Emilia Pérez’s awards chances. The evening is a tangible, valuable boost for the film, which, while it’s been a fixture of the festival season, is now on a mainstream radar in a way that it hadn’t been before. That means that more people will watch it, especially since it’s readily available to stream on Netflix.

Is a higher profile a good thing for its prospects? Or does it leave the film open to more, forgive the word, discourse.

It’s worth noting that a film this polarizing has, by the nature of what it means to be polarizing, passionate supporters. (Clearly. It’s won and been nominated for a slew of awards.) The Globes telecast also gave its cast and creative team an opportunity to speak to the historic nature of what it would mean for the film and its stars to continue to win trophies and be given televised platforms.

“I chose these colors tonight—the Buddhist colors—because I have a message for you,” Gascón, who was the last person to speak during the telecast before host Nikki Glaser said goodnight, said. She was the first openly trans performer to be nominated in her category. “The light always wins over darkness. You can put us in jail, you can beat us up, but you can never take away our soul or our resistance or our identity. I want to say to you, raise your voice and say that I won, I am who I am, not who you want [me to be].”

In an interview with Vanity Fair that was published Monday, Gascón addressed the backlash, saying, “Many are running a negative, nasty campaign against the film, so anything that I say, they will use it to make their case bigger.”

As for the clips that have been taken out of context, Gascón said, “When something has a big impact and is liked by many, others hate it just for existing.”