In 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences introduced a new rule regarding the eligibility of films for the Best Motion Picture category at the yearly Academy Awards event. To be considered for an award nomination, a film studio must complete an “Academy Inclusion Standards” form demonstrating how the movie fulfilled specific inclusion requirements in at least two out of four categories.
Gone were the days of honoring a film purely on its artistic merit; now we get to be told what is the Best Affirmative Action Motion Picture!
Since the implementation of this new artistic criterion by the Academy, the selection of Oscar finalists has tended to feature films that may feel distant to the general audience. Despite the category for Best Picture being expanded to accommodate up to 10 nominees, unlike the usual five, this year’s list comprises movies that many viewers may not be familiar with.
The frontrunner for this year’s Oscars is “Emila Pérez,” which has garnered an impressive 13 nominations. This Netflix film may be easily accessible for streaming in most households, but it has not quite captured the interest of the movie-watching public, as it does not even rank among the top 10 most-watched movies on the platform. The storyline is unique: a Spanish-language French production set in Mexico, running over two hours, centered around a drug lord from a violent cartel who desires to transition to a woman and is presented as a musical.
The film was awarded a Jury Prize and the cast took Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival. At The Golden Globes, it took trophies for Best Musical/Comedy, Best Non-English Film, and Zoe Saldana took the honors as Supporting Actress, all leading to over a dozen Oscar nominations. Hollywood is beside itself in praising how it is celebrating this “landmark” film. And yet, it is heavily criticized by those expected to fully embrace the film.
Each year the biggest gay rights advocacy group hosts its own entertainment ceremony, The GLAAD Media Awards, and in looking over the list of more than 300 nominees in nearly three dozen categories, the movie “Emilia Pérez” has not garnered a single nod. It turns out that the film that Hollywood has panegyrized effusively is scorned by the leaders of the gay community.
“‘Emilia Pérez’ is a step backward for trans representation,” GLAAD explained in November in a breakdown of its release compiled from a number of critics from the community. The group cites representations that are considered tropes in Hollywood’s portrayals of the trans community. Some of the main complaints served up concerns that while it was hyped coming out of Cannes, most of the reviews praising the film were not from members of the LGBTπ community, and so as the movie was building cultural and critical steam, it was driving away the very community it was depicting. Among the other critiques have been that the transitioning in the storyline is used as an act of redemption, where a murderous drug lord is heralded after the transition.
Adding fuel to the resistance to this film are some of the comments from the star of the movie, the trans performer Karla Garcia Gascon. Despite being nominated for the performance, Gascon has been angered and lashed out at those in the gay-trans community who have been critical of the film and/or the performance onscreen.
What seems apparent in all of this furor is that the Academy is essentially rushing to congratulate itself for upholding its own warped standards of approved filmmaking. After installing the rather ludicrous requirements of compulsory inclusion in order to judge art, it has overhyped a release that exemplifies their efforts without actually judging the film on merit. As a result, they are celebrating a film that misrepresents the trans community, insults the portrayal of the Mexican community with performers who are from other cultures and who speak the dialect improperly, and essentially presents a flawed character portrayal by using a transformation as a means of absolving sins. The implication is the title character is now above criticism as they are now properly transitioned.
The effect is that Hollywood is acting out in the most aggressive activist fashion, basically waving banners that show how accepting and welcoming they are to the trans community. This is explained by B.J. Colangelo at Slash Film.
“Academy voters are completely out of touch and clearly voting for the guise of performative progress of what “Emilia Pérez” symbolizes, rather than let the communities represented in the film take the lead and determine whether or not this is a portrayal that deserves celebration.”
This is the result when you begin and end the assessment of artistic quality based solely on the representation of social categories. When you do not judge on the basis of merit and craft, you end up celebrating what is closer to caricature than true representation.
