BY MELISA CABELLO CUAHUTLE
With two Academy Awards from 13 nominations, Emilia Perez might seem to be an exemplary movie. In reality, it is just a careless story that centers itself around stereotypes and taxing storylines. Following the story of a trans Mexican drug lord Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón), who fakes his death to escape their crimes and to transition genders, Emilia Perez centers around lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña), who helps Manitas fake her own death and transition into Emilia and later to reunite her with her family under her new identity. The film also features Selena Gomez as Manita’s wife, Jessi Del Monte, and Adriana Paz as Epifania Flores. Paz is the only Mexican and the only non-American or European actor from the main cast, despite the fact that the movie is set in Mexico and represents Mexican characters.“For me the heart of this movie was not Mexico, we weren’t making a film about a country, we were making a film about four women, and these women could’ve been Russian, could’ve been Dominican, could’ve been Black, from Detroit, could’ve been from Israel, from Gaza,” said Saldaña during press, after winning her Oscar. “These women are still very universal women.”
But this is not a universal story, these women could not have been in another country. While obviously a work of fiction, the issues that Emilia Perez deals with are very real. With 114,000 people officially missing, an average of 10 femicides per day (that is, when women or girls are killed because of their gender) and rising cartel-related violence that has killed almost half a million people in less than 20 years, many Mexicans have raised concerns about using a musical to tell a story with such heavy real-world implications.
While music can be used to explore serious and deep stories, the real problem with Emilia Perez is that it simply makes no effort to understand the country that it is set in. The film’s director, Jacques Audiard, bluntly admitted to the BBC that he decided not to shoot the movie in Mexico because what he imagined the movie to be “didn’t match the reality of the streets of Mexico.” The film might as well have been shot in a sepia filter, with its actors wearing sombreros and eating burritos. Even in its production, the film has a white saviour complex, made by a French man and Western women who had to tell the world what was happening in Mexico. There was no need, apparently, to include Mexicans in this because its Westerner producers knew best.
Even outside of its problematic representations of Mexico and its culture, however, the movie is simply flawed in its execution. The storytelling and the dialogue are awkward, the editing is choppy, and even the acting leaves much to be desired. Saldaña, who won the Oscar for her supporting role as an actress, slips into her own accent multiple times over the movie, despite the obvious Mexican identity of her character. Gomez, it seems, is even more awkward in her Spanish. The character she portrays, Jessi, is described as an American woman who nonetheless lives in Mexico and speaks in Spanish daily, yet Gomez’s Spanish is ludicrous and often unintelligible, even for native speakers. The problem is not that her accent is that of someone who speaks Spanish as a second language, or even of one who is learning it, but it is of one who does not know the language and is merely reading words they do not know the meaning of.
Even with the clear lack of grasp over the language, the lines that she reads are not something a native or fluent speaker would say. When learning a language, simple words and sentences are expected, with frequent grammatical mistakes. But this is not the case for Jessi, who speaks in a sort of advanced Spanish, giving the impression that her role was meant for someone who spoke Spanish fluently, but that ultimately a few character descriptions were changed to make it so her obvious American background made sense. As for the titular role, with all her controversies aside, Gascón’s acting is better than that of her co-stars, but her singing leaves much to be desired. For the leading character in a musical who, it has been revealed, was forced to rely on AI to expand her vocal range, Gascon’s musical shortcomings are astounding. Casting Director Carla Hool has insisted that the film’s producers looked for actors in Latin America but were ultimately unsatisfied and decided to look elsewhere. Can this really have been the best choice if the talent they decided on for Mexican roles was a woman who speaks no Spanish and a European woman who had to use AI for her singing scenes?
Still, actors can hardly do their jobs properly when the script is poor. The dialogue, entirely intended to be in Mexican Spanish, often uses words and phrases that are used in other regions or are not used in everyday talking at all. This is hardly surprising, considering the script was written by Audiard, who does not speak Spanish. One almost comical example of this occurs when Gomez’s Jessi proclaims how much she has missed her former lover. “Hasta me duele la pinche vulva nada más de acordarme de ti,” she says, ‘my fucking vulva even hurts just thinking about you.’ While the line gained attention when the film originally premiered in Cannes for being bold and racy, it only exemplifies a basic lack of Spanish comprehension: ‘vulva’ means the same in Spanish as in English: it is an organ, a word more likely to be used by doctors in a technical setting, rather than spoken in a casual phone conversation. The poor script goes beyond simple word choices, often resulting from an obvious lack of understanding of the culture and place it portrays. At one point in the film, when Jessi is moving neighborhoods with her children, Emilia asks her if “there are good schools in Polanco,” which is the equivalent of asking if there are good schools in Kensington and Chelsea or in the Upper East Side in Manhattan.
Overall, the story itself feels superficial, a simplified Disney tale in which bad people are reformed into tragic heroines. Emilia is first presented to the audience as Manitas, a ruthless drug lord who kidnaps people, coerces others and whose crimes are such that she needs to go into hiding. After her transition she becomes a soft, loving woman who fights for justice and helps the families of those who disappear find the mass graves of their loved ones. The implication that a transwoman might transition in order to leave a life of crime behind, is of course a ridiculous and harmful one, and has understandably caused much frustration with transgender rights advocates. Even in its cinematography, one of the film’s few strongsuits, ‘Emilia Perez’ occasionally falls back into deeply regressive caricature. When playing Manitas (that is, before transitioning) Gascón’s character has black hair, her face lighted in a dark atmosphere, with a shadow over the eyes making it seem like her skin and eyes are darker than they are in reality. Later, presented as a woman, Gascón’s blue eyes and blonde hair are fully visible. Using light to make people seem darker and, therefore, more sinister is of course nothing new in Western cinema. But the racist implications, and the fact that it is still being done, are deeply disappointing.
In spite of all this, and the promises of the Academy to promote inclusivity, Emilia Perez’s 13 nominations and two wins show how the Academy has not yet meaningfully changed. At the Oscars, as Emilia Perez’s winning actors and producers rose to give their speeches, there was no mention of the crisis in Mexico and no mention of any trans or LGBTQ+ issues. In spite of all its success, Emilia Perez has shed no useful light on the themes it has so harshly exploited.
With two Academy Awards from 13 nominations, Emilia Perez might seem to be an exemplary movie. In reality, it is just a careless story that centers itself around stereotypes and taxing storylines.
Directed by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard, Emilia Perez is a musical set in modern-day Mexico, dealing with topics such as systematic violence, corruption, and drug cartels.
Throughout the award season, and since it premiered earlier in the Summer, the film has gathered multiple awards and praises from critics, particularly for its acting. More recently, the film received two Academy Awards, for Best Original Song and Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña.
Following the story of a trans Mexican drug lord Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón), who fakes his death to escape their crimes and to transition genders, Emilia Perez centers around lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña), who helps Manitas fake her own death and transition into Emilia and later to reunite her with her family under her new identity.
The film also features Selena Gomez as Manita’s wife, Jessi Del Monte, and Adriana Paz as Epifania Flores. Paz is the only Mexican and the only non-American or European actor from the main cast, despite the fact that the movie is set in Mexico and represents Mexican characters.
“For me the heart of this movie was not Mexico, we weren’t making a film about a country, we were making a film about four women, and these women could’ve been Russian, could’ve been Dominican, could’ve been Black, from Detroit, could’ve been from Israel, from Gaza,” said Saldaña during press, after winning her Oscar. “These women are still very universal women.”
But this is not a universal story, these women could not have been in another country. The story surrounds violence inflicted by drug cartels, by corruption and inaction by the government, and deals with a crisis of over 100,000 missing people, many of whom were kidnapped in the current War on Drugs and as political repression. This is not a universal story, it is not a universal experience.
Dealing with Mexico’s ‘disappeared’ crisis, femicides, corruption, and cartel-related violence, the film itself begins with a Gotham-style scene of a person getting stabbed in the street.
It’s a work of fiction, but the issues that Emilia Perez deals with are very real.
With 114,000 people officially missing, an average of 10 femicides per day (that is, when women or girls are killed because of their gender) and rising cartel-related violence that has killed almost half a million people in less than 20 years, many Mexicans have raised concerns about using a musical to tell a story with such heavy real-world implications.
But while music can be used to explore serious and deep stories, the real problem with Emilia Perez is the lack of understanding of the country it is set in, by both cast and crew, in favor of scoring the dramatic type of story that the Academy often rewards.
The film’s director, Jacques Audiard, bluntly admitted to the BBC that he decided not to shoot the movie in Mexico because what he imagined the movie to be “didn’t match the reality of the streets of Mexico.”
The film might as well have been shot in a sepia filter, with its actors wearing sombreros and eating burritos.
With its narrative, the film has the underlying message of a white savior: made by a French man and Western women who had to tell the world what was happening in Mexico. There was no need to include Mexicans in this because the Westerners knew best.
Yet what Audiard essentially did, as well as the cast and everyone who worked on the movie, was to make money and fame over the suffering and real-life experiences of others.
Even outside of its problematic representations of Mexico and its culture, however, the movie is simply flawed in its execution.
Where the Academy seems to have lauded an emperor in all his new clothes, as the saying goes, the reality is that he has none.
The storytelling and the dialogue are awkward, the editing is choppy, and even the acting leaves much to be desired.
Saldaña, who won the Oscar for her supporting role as an actress, slips into her own accent multiple times over the movie, an insufficient aspect of her performance considering her character is described as being raised in Mexico.
She is not the only one– even some of the extras have non-Mexican accents.
Selena Gomez, who, along with her co-stars, won best performance at the Cannes Film Festival earlier, should never have accepted her role in the first place.
The character she portrays, Jessi, is described as an American woman who nonetheless lives in Mexico and speaks in Spanish daily. Yet, Gomez’s Spanish is ludicrous and often unintelligible, even for native speakers.
The problem is not that her accent is that of someone who speaks Spanish as a second language, or even of one who is learning it, but it is of one who doesn’t know the language and is merely reading words they do not know the meaning of. It’s not just the accent, it’s the tone and line delivery as well.
But even with the clear lack of grasp over the language, the lines that she reads are of one who a native or fluent speaker would say. When learning a language, simple words and sentences are expected, with frequent grammatical mistakes. But this is not the case for Jessi, who speaks in a sort of advanced Spanish, giving the impression that her role was meant for someone who spoke Spanish fluently, but that ultimately a few character descriptions were changed just to make it so her obvious American background made sense, a sloppy justification for casting a A-list actress who cannot perform the role she was cast for.
As for the titular role, with all her controversies aside, Gascón’s acting is better than that of her co-stars, but her singing leaves much to be desired. For the leading character in a musical who, it has been revealed, was forced to rely on AI to expand her vocal range, Gascon’s musical shortcomings are astounding.
Casting Director Carla Hool has insisted that they looked for actors in Latin America but were unsatisfied with the talent they found, going instead for the best option. Can this really have been the best choice if the talent they decided on for Mexican roles was a woman who speaks no Spanish and a European woman who had to use AI for her singing scenes?
Still, actors can hardly do their jobs properly when the script is poor.
The dialogue, entirely intended to be in Mexican Spanish, often uses words and phrases that are used in other regions or are not used in everyday talking at all. This is hardly surprising, considering the script was written by Audiard, who does not speak Spanish.
One almost comical example of this occurs when Gomez’s Jessi proclaims how much she has missed her former lover. “Hasta me duele la pinche vulva nada más de acordarme de ti,” she says, ‘my fucking vulva even hurts just thinking about you.’ While the line gained attentioned when the film originally premiered in Cannes for being bold and racy, it really just exemplifies a basic lack of Spanish comprehension: ‘vulva’ means the same in Spanish as in English: it is an organ, a word more likely to be used by doctors in a technical setting, rather than spoken in a casual phone conversation.
The poor script goes beyond simple word choices, often resulting from an obvious lack of understanding of the culture and place it portrays.
At one point in the film, when Jessi is moving neighborhoods with her children, Emilia asks her if “there are good schools in Polanco,” which is the equivalent of asking if there are good schools in Kensington and Chelsea or in the Upper East Side in Manhattan.
Overall, the story itself feels superficial, a simplified version of Disney and action movies in which bad people are reformed into tragic heroines.
Emilia is first presented to the audience as Manitas, a ruthless drug lord who kidnaps people, coerces others and whose crimes are such that she needs to go into hiding. After her transition she becomes a soft, loving woman who fights for justice and helps the families of those who disappear find the mass graves of their loved ones. The implication that a transwoman might transition in order to leave a life of crime behind, is of course a ridiculous and harmful one, and has understandably caused much frustration with transgender rights advocates.
The only semi-enjoyable part of the movie is the cinematography, which, in some songs, is striking and jazzy, working in harmony with the choreography. Yet in a very old-fashioned Hollywood way, even the cinematography pushes racist narratives.
When playing Manitas (that is, before transitioning) Gascón’s character has black hair, her face lighted in a dark atmosphere, with a shadow over the eyes making it seem like her skin and eyes are darker than they are in reality. Later, now presented as a woman, Gascón’s blue eyes and blonde hair are fully visible.
Using light to make people seem darker and, therefore, more sinister is of course nothing new in Western cinema. But the racist implications, and the fact that it is still being done, are deeply disappointing.
In spite of all this, and the promises of the Academy to promote inclusivity, Emilia Perez’s 13 nominations and two wins show how the Academy has not yet meaningfully changed.
At the Oscars, as Emilia Perez’s winning actors and producers rose to give their speeches, there was no mention of the crisis in Mexico and no mention of any trans or LGBTQ+ issues. In spite of all its success, Emilia Perez has shed no useful light on the themes it has so harshly exploited.
