The multi-Oscar-nominated narco-musical Emilia Pérez, whose success has been overshadowed by the emergence of a series of racist and Islamophobic social media posts written by its star, Karla Sofía Gascón, won best European film at Spain’s prestigious Goya awards on Saturday night.
Gascón, the first out transgender woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, stayed away from the ceremony after posts came to light in which she called George Floyd “a drug addict swindler”, denigrated China, and said Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity”.
Her remarks, for which she has apologised, triggered a wave of condemnation that has led to her being dropped by her publisher, as well as being criticised by the film’s director and prominent politicians, and which is also understood to have prompted the film’s studio, Netflix, to remove her from campaigning materials.
The mostly Spanish-language musical – about a Mexican drug cartel boss who fakes their death, transitions and starts a new life – won multiple prizes at last year’s Cannes film festival, picked up four Golden Globes, and has also been nominated in 13 Oscar categories.
Voting for the Goya awards closed on 24 January, days before the old posts emerged.
Despite the controversy, which could destroy Gascón’s Oscar hopes, some people have begun to question the scale and ferocity of the backlash.
At the Goyas ceremony in Granada, several prominent Spanish cultural figures spoke out to condemn Gascón’s tweets but also to criticise the treatment meted out to her.
“Everything that’s happening around Emilia Pérez and Karla Sofía Gascón really saddens me because there’s a great film behind all this,” said JA Bayona, the award-winning Spanish director of The Orphanage and Society of the Snow.
“Obviously, Karla Sofía Gascón made a mistake and her posts are inexcusable … But at the end of the day, if people are defending tolerance, then tolerance must also be accompanied by compassion. And I think what’s been going on with Karla Sofía Gascón is practically a lynching and I have the feeling that the brakes kind of need to be put on that.”
The Spanish-Italian actor Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, who won an honorary Goya at the ceremony, said Gascón’s work was as good as it had been before, and that she had been subjected to a “destructive and excessive” backlash.
“I don’t wish for her destruction, or for revenge, or for her to be cancelled,” Sánchez-Gijón added. “But I don’t wish this harm on anyone. She’s issued a full apology. She needs to be left in peace and she’s suffered considerably, as have the groups that were insulted by her words.”
On Tuesday, Antonio Banderas said Gascón deserved the benefit of the doubt, adding that he felt she had also been the victim of transphobia.
“I’m from Andalucía, and in Andalucía, there’s forgiveness for every sin,” he said. “If she’s asked for forgiveness, then she’ll get it from me. But, in any case, I think they’ve gone after her. There’s a lot of transphobia.”
Speaking to the Guardian earlier this week, a number of senior film publicists raised concerns over whether those working on the film, both during its making and its marketing, had, in the words of one PR veteran, “chucked her under the bus – then reversed it back over her body”.
“Those tweets were despicable,” they continued. “But everyone was on board for this amazing fairytale: an unknown becoming the first ever [out] trans actor up for an Oscar.” That magical narrative, said another, curdled into “the absolute worst-case scenario”.
The film, which was shot in France, has also caused controversy in Mexico, where many people have taken issue with its depiction of their country as a place of drugs, thugs and death.
One Mexican screenwriter, Héctor Guillén, summed it up with a post on X that read: “This is a message to the Academy: Mexico hates Emilia Pérez” and described the film as a “racist Eurocentrist mockery”.
Camila Aurora, a trans Mexican film-maker, responded with her own parody film, Johanne Sacreblu – “a tribute to Emilia Pérez” – which features “French” people in striped shirts, berets and painted-on moustaches dancing in the streets of a “Paris” that was actually Mexico.