No, ‘Emilia Perez’ Won’t Be Disqualified, & Whether You Like the Film or Not, It Shouldn’t Be

Should Emilia Perez be disqualified amidst the Karla Sofia Gascón comments making the rounds? No.

We are quite officially in the thick of Oscar season. How do I know? Because the knives have come out, and people are actively digging up old tweets and footage to smear actors like Fernanda Torres and now Karla Sofia Gascón, whose tweets about Black Lives Matter, Muslims, and countless other things that made me cringe have been making the rounds.

Gascón has since apologized and deleted her X account, and the act of removing your digital self across all platforms feels like a new Oscar deadline to hit somewhere between the nominations and voting window (where’s that on the Academy site?).

Many are calling for Gascón and the entire Emilia Perez film to be disqualified for their Best Actress nominee’s comments, and this is simply not going to happen for many reasons.

First, the Oscars have never disqualified a nominee for their behavior or rhetoric. In the nine times its happened, Oscar nominees have been revoked due to qualification errors. While you can be disqualified in the shortlist/nominating round for not meeting a specific threshold of critieria (most recent example is the song “Forbidden Road” from the Robbie Williams’ monkey biopic Better Man — for incorporating “material from an existing song that was not written”), no film has never been disqualified for a nomination due to their conduct outside of making the film or “bad tweets.” If they disqualify Gascón, they’d have to look at everyone’s social media (should Ariana Grande be disqualified for her “I hate Americans/I hate America” donut-gate footage?).

And really, while Gascón’s tweets were upsetting, think of history of the Oscars and all the winners (and losers) accused of truly heinous stuff, like domestic violence, sexual assault, and rape (Gary Oldman, Casey Affleck, Kobe Bryant) — and this was BEFORE they won their trophies.

And those are only the ones going back 10 years! Think of the Golden Age of Hollywood and all the fucked-up shit those guys did (and everyone knew about!).

Unfortunately, Hollywood has a history of bad behavior but only because it’s not the Academy Awards of Being Decent. They’re not voting for Gascón to be president (although don’t be surprised if Trump finds a cabinet position for her), but for her performance in the film, which I still think is pretty damn good — and also a milestone for the trans community. They say good art is one worth debating about, and if that’s the case, Emilia Perez is the best of this year because people can’t stop arguing over it. But are we arguing about it for the wrong reasons and just the sake to argue?

The Oscars don’t exist to make statements about people, just movies.