There are bad Oscar campaigns, and then there are campaigns so catastrophically self-inflicted that they make you wonder if someone, somewhere, lost a bet. The case of Emilia Pérez, once the clear frontrunner with a staggering 13 nominations, is increasingly starting to look like the latter. The musical crime drama from French director Jacques Audiard entered the race with all the momentum in the world: glowing reviews, a Palme d’Or win at Cannes, and a record-breaking 13 Oscar nominations, including a historic nod for Karla Sofía Gascón, the first openly transgender actor to be recognized by the Academy. But then, as is tradition in the awards cycle, the Internet did what it does best — it found the receipts.
At the eye of the storm is Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez’s once-celebrated star, whose nomination made her the first openly transgender performer recognized by the Academy. For a brief, shining moment, she was the progressive fairy tale of the season. Soon, someone started digging through her old Tweets, only to happen across an all-you-can-eat buffet of bigotry. Between 2020 and 2021, Gascón apparently had thoughts on everything from George Floyd to Islam, none of them good. She ranted about “too many Muslims” in Spain, implied that Islam should be banned, and mocked the Oscars themselves for being an “Afro-Korean festival.” Naturally, the Academy was not thrilled.
For a film that had positioned itself as a beacon of progressive storytelling, the optics were catastrophic. The Academy, which has spent the better part of the last decade frantically attempting to modernise itself for a more liberal audience, suddenly found one of its anointed contenders tainted by a fresh hell.
The backlash was swift, and Netflix, the studio behind Emilia Pérez, found itself in a PR nightmare. Zoe Saldaña, Gascón’s co-star and a frontrunner for Best Supporting Actress, scrambled to distance herself from the scandal without outright throwing Gascón under the bus. As the Frenchman making a movie about Mexican cartel violence shot almost entirely in Paris, Audiard found himself answering uncomfortable questions about whether Emilia Pérez had any business being the kind of “progressive” Oscar darling it was pretending to be.
And so, just like that, the film that was supposed to be a frontrunner has now become something else entirely: a test case for whether Hollywood’s institutional memory has grown longer than a single news cycle. The damage is so severe that its once-unstoppable momentum has stalled, and whispers are growing that Academy members may hesitate to vote for it in any category, lest they be accused of excusing racism, xenophobia, or just bad optics. Saldaña’s once-assured win is now in jeopardy, and even Best Picture — which Emilia Pérez seemed poised to claim — may be (thankfully) slipping away.
Can Emilia Pérez still win Best Picture if its lead actor is radioactive? Can Gascón still claim victory, or is she destined to become this year’s cautionary tale? At the very least, one thing has become clear: there is no longer a frontrunner in this race, just a handful of contenders and a whole lot of chaos.
And that’s just the beginning. Emilia Pérez may have detonated the loudest scandal of the season, but it is far from the only film taking collateral damage. Take The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s prestige drama that had all the hallmarks of Best Picture, until Corbet admitted that AI was used to create some of its imagery and tweak Hungarian pronunciation. Considering that Hollywood spent all of 2023 battling AI over labour rights, the revelation quickly transformed what should have been an arthouse darling into a potential pariah.
Then there’s Anora, which suffered a different kind of controversy when its lead actress, Mikey Madison, casually mentioned that she opted not to use an intimacy coordinator for her many graphic sex scenes, which wasn’t exactly a winning campaign strategy, post #MeToo. Meanwhile, I’m Still Here, the Brazilian submission for Best International Feature, as well as Best Picture nominee alongside Emilia Perez saw its own star, Fernanda Torres, apologising for wearing blackface in a 2004 comedy sketch.
And let’s not forget the category fraud accusations flying in every direction. Is Zoe Saldaña really a supporting actress? Should Kieran Culkin have been pushed as a lead for A Real Pain? Is anyone in Wicked actually supporting when they sing half the songs? The Academy has traditionally been flexible with these definitions (see: Isabella Rosselini landing a supporting nod for a measly seven-minute screen time in Conclave ), but in a year where everything is already a mess, it just adds to the growing pile of grievances.
One by one, the contenders are dropping like flies. Rather than clearing a path for one film to cruise to an easy victory, the destruction has left the race more uncertain than ever. Films are no longer just judged on their artistic merit, but on their ability to withstand the scrutiny of thousands of cinephiles armed with the unshakeable power of holding a grudge too long. Whatever ends up taking home the top prize will simply be because they stepped on the fewest landmines.
Who benefits when everyone is in trouble? Conventional wisdom would suggest that a film like A Complete Unknown, James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic, could emerge as a safe, scandal-free alternative. But its own campaign has been oddly muted, raising questions about whether it has enough support to capitalise on the misfortunes of its competitors.
Then there’s Conclave, the papal thriller about the Vatican that, unlike most of its competition, has managed to avoid controversy entirely. It is safe. And for a year where one contender after another has shot itself in the foot, that might be all it takes. It has quiet prestige, solid performances, and a lack of baggage — which might make it the film Academy members feel most comfortable voting for.
But maybe the real answer is that there is no answer. Maybe, for the first time in years, we are headed into an Oscar ceremony where no one really knows what’s going to happen. This kind of unpredictability feels almost thrilling, at least for those of us watching from the sidelines. It would be a deeply ironic end to a season that started as a celebration of progress to devolve into a reminder that Hollywood still prizes stability.
Of course, that theory only works if voters decide they care about the scandals at all. History suggests that they don’t — at least not consistently. As much as the Oscars pretend to celebrate “excellence in cinema,” they are, at their core, a deeply political game. In 1999, Harvey Weinstein’s notorious behind-the-scenes campaigning helped Shakespeare in Love steal Best Picture from Saving Private Ryan. In 2019, despite a parade of controversies, Green Book still triumphed over Roma. Even last year, the Academy overlooked Oppenheimer’s many detractors and handed it nearly every major prize. Scandals have consequences, but only when voters decide they should. Voters don’t want to reward controversy, but they also don’t want to be seen as punishing the “wrong” people. So the real question isn’t whether Emilia Pérez is too controversial to win; rather, if voters can convince themselves that they’re making a statement by voting for it anyway.
The only safe bet is that more chaos is coming. There are still weeks to go before final ballots are due, and if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that no scandal ever exists in isolation. More shoes will drop. More skeletons will emerge. More whisper campaigns will take root. And by the time the Oscars finally arrive, this year’s race may not resemble anything we thought it would.
But then again, that’s what makes it fun, isn’t it? The Oscars have never been about rewarding the best film of the year. They’ve been about rewarding the film that survives the longest. With every major contender limping toward the finish line, it’s anyone’s guess who will still be standing when the dust finally settles. If nothing else, this year’s race is shaping up to be one of the most entertaining ones we’ve seen in a long, long time.
The Oscars stream live on March 2.
Published – February 04, 2025 03:16 pm IST
