But for folks who remember the awards seasons of 2016, 2018, and even last year, this is not the first time Film Twitter has denounced a high-profile awards season contender in the hopes of causing waves of backlash, and it won’t be the last. These critiques can sometimes gain momentum and can shape and influence the outcome of awards season. Such as when 2016’s “La La Land” famously lost Best Picture to “Moonlight” after backlash regarding the film’s whitewashed portrait of jazz. Other times, Academy members do not seem to care what Film Twitter thinks, like when 2018’s “Green Book” prevailed on movies’ biggest night despite fervent campaigning online to ensure its downfall.
At the end of the day, thinkpieces, controversies, and self-perpetuating discourse happen virtually every year during awards season surrounding at least one of the big contenders. The causal reasons are always different, whether it’s an outdated view represented in the film—like the “Green Book” controversy—or a movie star trying a bit too hard to win an Oscar—a sentiment many people felt about Bradley Cooper last year.
Regardless of the specifics, this annual pattern demonstrates that the outrage over “Emilia Pérez” is not entirely about the issues raised in the film; it’s also about the societal need for an awards season villain, one that can embody the problems this vocal group of cinephiles has with Hollywood.
The Common Traits of the Awards Season Villain
Every awards season villain manifests itself slightly differently during the Oscar race, but there are a few commonalities across recent candidates. The first is that the villain often emerges as an early frontrunner or serious contender months before nominations are announced. This allows time for the hype to build and for the general public to make their thoughts heard, potentially causing the awards campaign to lose momentum going into Oscar night.
This was perhaps most obvious in 2016 after “La La Land” won prizes at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival before racking up awards at televised ceremonies. By the time Oscar voting began, “La La Land” was already being condemned by Film Twitter as over-rewarded. One could argue that the same sentiment was applied to “The Power of the Dog” in 2021, a film that swept the first half of awards season but peaked too early.
“Emilia Pérez” is following a similar trajectory. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival back in May, with its four lead actresses collectively winning the Best Actress prize, a choice that immediately sparked skepticism with pop star Selena Gomez among the honorees. The film was then released on Netflix in November. In hindsight, a streaming release was the wrong move for “Emilia Pérez.” Instead of bolstering support with a fresh group of supporters, the now divisive and controversial film could be widely seen and picked apart online by anyone with a Netflix subscription—subject to the opinions of the masses. If the movie were solely distributed theatrically, it would be far more difficult for the average viewer to mock it, as that would mean they would have to get off their behind and see it in a movie theater.
Another hallmark of our dear villain is that there is often a heavy-handed and dated quality in the film’s messaging that generally appeals to an older Academy voter—your “Green Books” and your “CODAs,” if you will. “Emilia Pérez” certainly has its on-the-nose moments, such as the oft-mocked scene when Zoe Saldaña talk-sings the phrase, “Changing society changes the soul.” Responses to cinematic moments like these indicate generational differences between Academy voters and young cinephiles. What tugs at the heartstrings of the former group seems to be eye-roll-inducing to the latter.
Finally, there is classic awards bait fodder. This is where sweeping biopics like “Maestro” or this year’s “A Complete Unknown” come into play. This also applies to films that tackle important social issues on the surface—even if the way those issues are tackled is up for debate—like 2005’s “Crash,” a controversial Best Picture winner that is already being compared to “Emilia Pérez.” In this way, awards bait practically becomes a genre of film in and of itself, one that causes debate over its formulaic predictability and oversimplification of complex subject matter.
Why “Emilia Pérez” is a Surprising Awards Season Villain
This film is already creating quite a stir due to its problematic nature and content, and it’s, frankly, too much to get into here. Several well-crafted critiques have analyzed the film’s hyperfocus on the specifics of gender confirmation surgery, its stereotypical portrait of Mexico as crafted in large part by a French filmmaking team, and even Selena Gomez’s Spanish. Many folks online feel that these flaws are too egregious to excuse, hence the baffled reactions when it picked up several Golden Globes a few weeks ago.
Still, despite these valid criticisms, there is something surprising about “Emilia Pérez” being cast as this year’s awards season villain. Sure, it covers the bases of the classic villain we’ve seen before—it was an early frontrunner that tackles major social issues with perhaps overly simplistic, heavy-handed messaging.
That being said, in defense of “Emilia Pérez,” it is many other things. It’s an original movie musical almost entirely sung and performed in a foreign language. It’s not simplistic in its approach to genre, as director Jacques Audiard constantly moves from comedy to tragedy to crime thriller to romance from scene to scene—much in the same vein as recent Best Picture winner “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” a movie that Film Twitter loved. Furthermore, “Emilia Pérez” features bold cinematic flourishes and strong performances, including one from Karla Sofía Gascón, who has now become the first transgender performer to receive a Best Actress nomination at the Academy Awards. The online animosity toward the film seems to have overshadowed the historic nature of this nomination.
Finally, while this is by no means an excuse for its problematic qualities, “Emilia Pérez” is very much a French film with a European cultural sensibility, meaning that what may register as offensive in the United States might be interpreted differently elsewhere. That’s not to say that the criticisms do not have merit—for instance, an activist created a compelling and scathing parody video of “Emilia Pérez” called “Johanne Sacrebleu” that flips the film's portrait of Mexico as seen through the eyes of the French on its head. Still, it’s important to consider the nuances of cultural differences and views in other parts of the world before dismissing “Emilia Pérez” entirely as awards bait for basic Academy boomers, seeing as they do not run the Cannes Film Festival or the European Film Awards, both of which embraced the movie.
It’s therefore overly simplistic to claim that “Emilia Pérez” is this year’s “Green Book” or “CODA.” In some ways, it fits the criteria for a classic awards season villain, but in other ways, it’s a strange and one-of-its-kind movie that doesn’t neatly compare to those more formulaic narratives. Still, this vocal group of cinephiles is committed to casting “Emilia Pérez” as reflective of everything that is problematic about the tastes of the Academy, regardless of how much the film actually encapsulates those frustrations. But hey, as the Wizard himself said in the much more beloved movie musical this awards season, this is what the masses really needed to get through this pop culture moment: a “really good enemy.”
via @KVhosske