Yahoo Lifestyle Why Karla Sofía Gascón’s Twitter Scandal Spells Trouble for the Oscars Ceremony
Much as its cartel-boss-trying-to-go-good antiheroine does as she tears through her family and community, “Emilia Pérez” defines its environment. It has been tipped for Academy attention since Greta Gerwig’s Cannes jury gave it two key prizes. And its field-leading 13 Oscar nominations (a number that, were there still two sound categories where “Perez” could be honored instead of just one, would tie the all-time record) have made it, up until very recently, the film to beat. More than that, though, its star Karla Sofía Gascón has become a defining figure — no, the defining figure — in an awards race whose strange ugliness has set it apart. The recent revelation of years’ worth of Islamophobic, racist and otherwise casually yet remarkably cruel posts on the platform now known as X have given us something utterly novel: An awards-season star whose existence makes one wish the Oscars weren’t even happening.
Prior to Jan. 30, Gascón had seemed a flawed and imperfect messenger for her movie in ways that could be benevolently ignored — she’s new to the scene, after all! — or treated as messily human and thus oddly refreshing. Like her character, she is trans, and there was a certain magical-thinking aspect of wishing her toward a role model status she seemed only fitfully interested in pursuing for herself. If she was media trained by Netflix, it wasn’t effectively, as proven by her accusing associates of fellow nominee Fernanda Torres of acting in concert to undermine her or lashing out at queer critics of “Emilia Pérez.” In one interview, Gascón said, “Let me tell you: Being LGBT doesn’t make you less of an idiot.”
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Say this much for the star: She is certainly living that truth. And her bigoted, violent, and often frankly bizarre stream of consciousness — on a feed that she has now deleted — has exposed not merely a remarkable lack of judgment, proportion, or good sense. It’s raised existential questions about how her campaign, or, at its end, her Oscar night, can go on.
To wit: At the Golden Globes, before any of these tweets had come to light, Gascón accepted the film’s best picture prize, declaring, “The light always wins over darkness.” (It was language she ran back, like a losing politician out of ideas, in her pathetically limp apology, saying “I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”) Prior to these tweets’ revelations, the SAGs seemed like a moment that, should “Emilia Pérez” win best ensemble, the film’s ascendancy could be complete, with Gascón once again delivering a rallying cry. Now, though, if she stood among her castmates — among them Selena Gomez, whose public displays of empathy seem wildly counter to Gascón’s own sensibility — and declared that the light will win, it would seem like a bad joke. Or an opportunity to contemplate what, exactly, Gascón considers “the light,” and what she considers “the darkness.”
SAG voting doesn’t close for weeks, and Gascón has certainly damaged her film’s prospects — but she’s still presumably going to be a presence. (Netflix representatives did not respond to a request for comment as to whether the film’s campaign would still be bringing Gascón to future awards shows.) Gascón is a nominee, too, at the BAFTAs and the Oscars. In a world where the BAFTAs’ host were to shout out the nominees from the stage — as performer Ariana DeBose did two years ago — what is there even to say here? Similarly, the Oscars had already announced a return to the “Fab Five” style of awards presentation, where five previous winners deliver heartfelt tributes to a nominee they particularly admire. (Last year, Sally Field spoke affectionately about Emma Stone, Charlize Theron admiringly about Annette Bening, and so on.) Sly jokes about another European star who is not immune to conspiracy thinking aside, who would, at this point, stand on a stage and vouch for Gascón? And Oscar host Conan O’Brien is an unusually adept comedian, but one who tends to operate in the realms of absurdity and joy rather than rancor and roasting — how can he address this? But, perhaps, how can he not? Either way, if Gascón attends, there will be a massive oxygen suck sitting at the center of the Dolby Theatre.
Since the early days of this year, the Oscars have existed on a razor’s edge of taste — the Los Angeles wildfires have raised questions about how the show can be put together with a level of respect, and even if it should. And beyond that, it’s been an exceptionally ugly Oscar season, and not for the reasons old-school Oscar-watchers remember. In the past, studio machers stirred up rumors and bad blood. But various of this season’s skirmishes, from a lengthy and ugly debate over the lack of intimacy coordinators on the set of “Anora” to the recent dramas over a past clip of Torres in blackface and the use of AI in the production of “The Brutalist,” have been turbocharged by the very medium Gascón used as her nasty id — social media.
But the new Gascón revelations outdo all of these and other years’ scandals and have blown up awards season; the only possible comparison is to Will Smith storming the Oscar stage to slap Chris Rock. Then, there were about 40 minutes of tension as viewers at home waited to see how the broadcast would handle the sudden Oscar villain winning. This year, we have more than a month. What might, under another set of circumstances, have been a fun and lively distraction from the ills of the wider world has become a referendum on one unhinged social-media user whose output looks a lot like that of newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump; what might have been, despite whatever qualms one may have with the film, an inspiring story of trans resilience has become an object lesson in the fact that marginalized people can still punch down, and viciously at that. The fortunes of “Emilia Pérez” have radically shifted, but one thing has remained constant: It’s the defining film of what, thanks to an unbridled and unpleasant new figure, has become an Oscar season many fans now just want to end.
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