Does Emilia Perez deserve redemption in a world where second chances are rare?
Karla Sofía Gascón is the transgender Spanish actress who plays Emilia Peréz, a dangerous drug dealer living in Mexico who hires a highly skilled lawyer (Zoë Saldaña) to assist in securing gender-affirming care to transition into a woman.
The almost entirely Spanish film received backlash after past social media posts were discovered that expressed Gascón’s racist opinions, which included the use of inappropriate language and slurs.
Adding to the controversy, one of the most popular songs from the film, “La Vaginoplastia,” sparked discussions online. In this scene, the lawyer travels to Tel Aviv, Israel, searching for a doctor to perform the surgery. The song was taunted by social media users over the line “Man to woman or woman to man / man to woman / from penis to vagina.” One popular channel, MsMojo, posted a video listing the top three worst songs in Emilia Perez, which crowned “La Vaginoplastia” at No. 1.
When TikTok users searched “Emilia Perez Song” on the app, the top videos featured movie clips of the songs with captions critiquing them. “No way this won best original song,” user Nospharratu said, posting a video with a clip of another song from the movie, “El Mal.”
While the film experienced backlash for its bold choice of lyrics, the controversy was nothing compared to the uproar from the discovery of Gascón’s bigoted posts on X from Nov. 22. 2020.
“I’m sorry, is it just my impression or is there more Muslims in Spain?” one of Gascón’s tweets read as translated by Variety Magazine. “Every time I go to pick up my daughter from school there are more women with their hair covered and their skirts down to their heels. Next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.”
Zoë Saldaña spoke out on the discovery at a Q&A in London.
“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,” Saldaña said.
Despite public outrage, Gascón’s Islamophobia did not affect the film’s success as it went on to win two Oscars and numerous award nominations despite having an IMBd score of 5.4 out of 10.
Conversely, not all viewers were angry at Gascón for her comments. One such viewer is Regina Arnold, a University of San Francisco professor and Stanford University lecturer who feels that American audiences may be too hard on Gascón.
“America is a very racist country with some very racist policies and some very racist people in it, and being angry at Karla Gascón because she expressed racism is a strange form of self-hatred on the part of Americans,” Arnold said. “She’s not saying anything that many Americans have not expressed in the same terms, so what’s going on here? Is it to take down a trans actress? It could be.”
This question raises the controversy of whether Gascón is receiving hate because of her identity rather than her political opinions.
Gascón posted these posts over three years ago, apologized for them once they resurfaced, closed her account, and still received hate for them. Arnold connects this situation to Armie Hammer, director and actor best known for his role as Lone Ranger.
“He got taken down by social media posts by a young woman who he had an affair with, who talked a lot about the awful stuff he did in bed, and it really has ruined his career because he’ll never act again,” Arnold said.
Information can spread quickly on social media, primarily how it affects actors’ professional and personal lives.
“There’s a lot of naivete around social media, not just from naive people, but from smart people and the government and stuff,” Arnold said. “I think the main lesson is that nobody in the public should say anything sincere or claim their own beliefs on social media.”
