It’s the ‘most toxic,’ controversial Oscar season in years. Will that matter?

A little mudslinging is par for the course in every awards season. But this year just might be the messiest Oscar race on record.

Over the last few months, a slew of best picture nominees have weathered their shares of scandals large and small, involving AI (“The Brutalist”), intimacy coordinators (“Anora”), blackface (“I’m Still Here”), and most prominently, racism and Islamophobia (“Emilia Pérez”). Diehard fans of Ariana Grande (“Wicked”) and Selena Gomez ("Emilia Pérez") have squabbled over which pop star is the "better" actor, while conservative commentator Megyn Kelly blasted papal thriller "Conclave" as "anti-Catholic."

In short, the discourse has reached nuclear-grade levels of exhausting, far surpassing the backlash that accompanied 2018's "Green Book" or 2023's "Barbie."

“It gets worse and worse every year, but I think this is probably the most toxic season,” says Megan McLachlan, co-founder of awards site The Contending. “It really hit a peak this year, with a lot of vitriol and people being shady with each other. The Oscars have become almost as contentious as the Super Bowl.”

And with Oscar voting now underway, many pundits are eager to put this season to bed with the March 2 ceremony (ABC and Hulu, 7 p.m. ET/4 PT), jaded by the excessively ruthless campaign cycle.

Instead of highlighting success stories such as “Nickel Boys,” “we’re punching down rather than celebrating,” says Ryan McQuade, executive editor of prediction site Awards Watch. “As someone who covers this, it makes me want this to be over as quickly as possible. By the end, with all the bickering going on, you’re just like, ‘God, can we not talk about the Oscars for the next six months?’ ”

Karla Sofía Gascón, 'The Brutalist' have been at the center of Oscar backlash

This season’s teeth-gnashing calls to mind the dirty tactics of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who famously planted stories and led malicious whisper campaigns against rival films. (“Harvey, thank you for killing whoever you had to kill to get me up here,” actress Jennifer Lawrence joked in her 2013 Golden Globes acceptance speech for “Silver Linings Playbook.”)

There's a reason for these recent "targeted" crusades, McQuade says. Before "Anora" claimed frontrunner status with Directors Guild and Producers Guild wins this past weekend, the best picture race was wide open, with five or six films that had viable paths to victory. As a result, more people have felt emboldened to try and sway the outcome by "tweeting something from the past or saying something negative about somebody else."

Three weeks after winning best drama picture, actor and director at the Golden Globes, "The Brutalist" was condemned for its minimal use of AI technology in postproduction – a fact that only came to light after a small trade outlet published an interview with the movie's editor, which started making the rounds on social media. The story was quickly picked up by major industry publications, although most neglected to report that several other best picture nominees, including “A Complete Unknown,” “Dune: Part Two” and “Emilia Pérez,” also used varying degrees of AI.

“Only including ‘The Brutalist’ in headlines did feel disingenuous,” McQuade says. “This year, there was a lot of backchanneling that felt like the old days,” when best picture hopefuls “Brokeback Mountain” and “Saving Private Ryan” were maimed by smear campaigns in the eleventh hour.

The unscrupulous attacks might also be a reflection of where we are as a society, with slams and vendettas pervading everything from the White House to the Super Bowl halftime show. "Emilia Pérez" star Karla Sofía Gascón has been repeatedly misgendered by conservative media since making Oscar history last month as the first openly trans nominee in a major category. A week later, the Spanish-born actress was swiftly disavowed by Hollywood after scores of bigoted posts were unearthed on her social media – a stark contrast to the messages of love and tolerance she had been preaching on the campaign trail.

"As much as Hollywood wanted to anoint that performance, they'll easily back away from something they know won't look good," McQuade says. And yet, "this is the same organization that gave Roman Polanski and Woody Allen Oscars after their allegations coming out; they nominated Mel Gibson for 'Hacksaw Ridge.' It speaks volumes to the level that society is willing to accept the sins and flaws of some. There's an imbalance there."

Academy Awards voters can separate 'real controversy' and 'online chatter'

Despite a leading 13 nominations, the Oscar hopes of "Emilia Pérez" have been torpedoed by Gascón's remarks and a myriad of other controversies. The movie musical, which follows a Mexican drug lord (Gascón) who undergoes gender-affirming surgery, has come under fire for offensive trans and Mexican representation.

'It was the perfect storm with 'Emilia Pérez,' " McLachlan says. "I can't remember a film that's ignited so much talk online. People are either very for or against it, and it's stirred up discourse around other films as well."

More movies have sparked backlash this season, albeit to a lesser degree: In December, “Anora” breakout Mikey Madison was criticized for saying that she declined to use an intimacy coordinator for the film’s sex scenes, out of a desire to "just keep it small." Last month, “I’m Still Here” star Fernanda Torres apologized after a 2008 comedy sketch resurfaced of her wearing blackface on Brazilian TV. (At that time in Brazil, "there was a lot of blindness" about race, Torres told USA TODAY.)

Oscar frontrunners Demi Moore (“The Substance”) and Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”) similarly came under fire for old clips that social media users deemed problematic in retrospect: a decades-old video of a then-19-year-old Moore kissing her 15-year-old co-star, and Brody impersonating a Jamaican on "Saturday Night Live" in 2003. But these "scandals" were short-lived, failing to make much noise outside of the echo chambers of social media.

“You have stan culture meeting awards season, and it becomes a sport,” McQuade says. At the end of the day, “(Oscar) voters know what a real controversy is and what is online chatter," and ultimately, most of this year's dustups will have little impact on the actual race.

But going forward, the nastiness of this season could have lingering effects on how future awards efforts are run.

“These campaigns are going to be a lot more scrutinizing about what their actors have done and said,” McLachlan says, which will almost surely include increased vetting and media training before unleashing talent on the world. "Maybe the lesson is that you're never going to run a flawless campaign because people make mistakes."

McQuade also worries for journalists, who are increasingly doxed and harassed by incensed fan bases if they dare publish anything remotely negative about their beloved actors.

"I hope we can go back to loving these films for what they are and not making it such a vicious competition," says McQuade, who has received numerous death threats in the last couple of years for sharing his awards opinions online. "From a pundit's point of view, I hope people can not be so angry toward one another. We already have a lot of division and hate in this country – we don't need that for movies."

Come March 3, "let's just reboot and try better next year."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Oscars reached a 'toxic' new low with 'Emilia Pérez' controversy