Netflix Scrambles to Contain ‘Emilia Pérez’ Oscar Disaster

Netflix is scrambling to contain the fallout from Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón’s resurfaced racist tweets according to several reports, which say the streamer has all but disinvited the actress from the rest of the award season’s festivities.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix has ceased communicating with Gascón, opting instead to speak through her agent—and not extending the usual funding for travel and accommodations to attend the various appearances she was set to make later this week to promote the film.

Gascón’s resurfaced tweets, with her offensive takes on Muslims, George Floyd, and, allegedly, her costar Selena Gomez, and more, have essentially tanked any possibility of her winning the Best Actress Oscar following her nomination—the first ever for a trans actress in the category. Since the tweets were uncovered by freelance journalist Sarah Hagi, Gascón hasn’t played by the usual damage control playbook, opting instead to continue addressing the matter publicly without any coordination with Netflix.

American actresses Gomez and Zoe Saldaña share top billing with Gascón in Emilia Pérez, with Saldaña the current frontrunner to win Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards. The trio had been making a good go of winning over Hollywood, despite poor reception on the streamer (Vanity Fair cites low audience scores and the film’s inability to crack Netflix’s top 10 US rankings). The trio of actresses had been doing press together with a message about diversity and empowerment, so Gascón’s public statements disparaging various races and groups has been a “setback,” as Saldaña called it in her one attempt to address the scandal.

The actress notably didn’t use Gascón’s name as she told press last week, “It makes me really sad because I don’t support [it], and I don’t have any tolerance for any negative rhetoric towards people of any group.”

Gomez, for her part, has yet to address the obscene tweets—even though Gascón referred to her as a “rich rat” who “will never stop bothering her ex-boyfriend [Justin Bieber] and his wife [Haley Bieber].” Gomez has been busy with controversy of her own, however, as MAGA is only recently piping down with its attacks on the star for crying on video as she criticized Trump’s mass deportations.

Gomez’s decision not to fan the flames may be just what Netflix wants right now, as it tries to contain Gascón’s damage during the film’s Oscar run. Vanity Fair reports that a new ad to lure Academy voters “all but omits” Gascón’s role in the film, despite the actress having played the titular role. An Oscar campaign that once represented a rebuke to Donald Trump’s anti-DEI crusade now struggles to reposition itself, the outlet reports, observing the streamer’s new approach lacks “a clear new angle.”

All of this comes after Gascón essentially made herself the face of the film by delivering the acceptance speech for Best Musical or Comedy that ended the Golden Globes awards last month. “You can maybe put us in jail, you can beat us up, but you never can take away our soul, our resistance, or our identity,” she said that night when the film took home the Best Musical or Comedy award. “And I want to say to you, raise your voice and say, ‘I am who I am, not who you want.’”

Of course, even before the current scandal, the film has always been a controversial Oscar frontrunner. Various social media users have railed against its representation of trans and Latino communities. Then, weeks before Gascón’s tweets were unearthed and on the heels of its Golden Globes wins, cringe-worthy clips of the film began to go viral as regular viewers expressed shock over its critical success.

Netflix seems to be taking an aggressive approach to protecting the film’s 12 other Oscar nominations (the most of any other in competition). Some social media users have accused the streamer of censoring influencer critiques of the film altogether through copyright infringement claims on YouTube. The Daily Beast has reached out to Netflix for comment, but hasn’t yet received a response.

And instead of attending a slew of awards ceremonies this weekend, according to Vanity Fair, which would have included the Critics Choice Awards where she was also nominated for Best Actress, Gascón is expected to remain in Spain. At this point, even her presence at the Oscars ceremony on Mar. 2 is not assured.

In the meantime, the actress is defending staying in the race for the Best Actress Oscar, telling CNN, “I cannot renounce a nomination because what I have done is a job and what is being valued is my acting work… I have not committed any crime nor have I harmed anyone, I am not a racist, nor am I anything that all these people have taken it upon themselves to try to make others believe that I am.”