Emilia Pérezis easily the most divisive film of this year's Hollywood awards race.
The Netflix film from French director Jacques Audiard tells the story of a Mexican cartel head who hires a lawyer to help her transition into the woman she's always wanted to be. Its lead, Karla Sofía Gascón, is on track to be the first out trans actor ever nominated for an acting Oscar. (And she has already made history at the BAFTAs for this distinction.)
However, instead of her historic accomplishments being celebrated by the trans community, many trans and queer critics (apart from the ones at Out, The Advocate, and PRIDE, who rank it as the eighth best LGBTQ+ film this century so far, the highest-ranked trans film on the list) are calling the film "cis nonsense" and "completely from the cis imagination." These critics argue that — not only does it not deserve award attention — but Emilia Pérez is a regressive and trope-filled trans story that shows a lack of curiosity about trans people.
These critiques are downplaying, if not erasing, the hard work put in by Gascón to shape the character and the story itself, particularly the trans aspects, which changed a lot from Audiard's original ideas thanks to Gascón's input.
Karla Sofía Gascón in 'Emilia Pérez.'Netflix
Gascón has spoken about how much she worked to make sure the film had a trans point of view for its trans character.
"[The] truth is that Jacques was always very open, very open to listening to me, and he really gave me a lot of freedom to create," she told Out in a prior interview. "All I could bring to the table was my own experience, which is clearly very different from a lot of people. I think as human beings, we all have different experiences, we have different lives."
"But at the end of the day, there was a lot of freedom and love in wanting to understand this character," she added.
Gascón wanted to lean into the character's flaws specifically in order to make her a more complex (and real) trans character.
"I think Emilia adapted a bit to me, and I to her. As an actress, I can’t judge my characters; I have to understand them," she said in another interview with Out. "What kind of actress would I be if I portrayed my characters from the outside, questioning their decisions instead of understanding their struggles? Emilia is a very, very complex character who comes from the deepest darkness.... That’s what I gave her: the thickest darkness so that the light could shine brighter."
Gascón has also spoken about how she helped Audiard change his idea for the film, which was based on a chapter in the novel Écoute by Boris Razon. In the book, a drug lord transitions solely to escape the authorities and his enemies, something that Gascon wanted to make sure wasn't the plot of the film.
"The day we met in Paris, he asked me, 'What do you think?' And I said, 'I like this, I don't like that, I like this, I don't like that.' And he said, 'You fucker!'" she told Rolling Stone about working with Audiard. "The first script was a lot more comedy, and that worried me. It was going to be a completely different film."
"If Manitas transitioned just to flee justice,” she continued, “then the entire thing would’ve been a joke. It would’ve been a pure comedy for people to laugh in theaters without anything transcendental. It would’ve been a film that the LGBTQ community would’ve said, 'What is this?'"
Karla Sofía Gascón in 'Emilia Pérez.'Netflix
In a new Hollywood Reporter cover story, Gascón revealed that in Audiard's original script, Manitas's transition was treated as a comedic premise where a crime lord was simply trying to escape from justice: Only after transitioning would she deal with an inner identity struggle. Gascón immediately saw the flaws in that.
"I now realize it was a profound psychological error," Audiard says of his original idea. "She's a powerful educator. She led me to understand that, well before transitioning, we're already what we want to become."
Gascón also edified Audiard on how sexuality and gender are different, removing a scene where a post-op Emilia comedically picks up a man. "It was a very funny scene, but it changed the whole perspective of the character and turned her into someone far more promiscuous," she says.
Without Gascón's input, the film would be "purely from the cis imagination," as several trans critics have said. However, it is becoming more and more clear that Gascón actually had an integral role in shaping the character and how her transition is treated by the narrative.
Unfortunately, Gascón's efforts have gone unrecognized by many LGBTQ+ critics, who are missing these nuances of the film through an interpretation that the character is transitioning merely as a way to absolve herself of her sins.
One might argue that the main argument of the film wasn't well-articulated. I'd reply by saying that, in my opinion, the film's harshest critics ignore much of what happens onscreen, resulting in flawed interpretations.
Karla Sofía Gascón in 'Emilia Pérez.'Netflix
Some of my favorite trans writers and critics, who I have nothing but respect for, have offered up criticisms that, to me, don't work on a textual level.
For The Cut, Harron Walker (one of my favorite writers) said the film "presents transition as inherently redemptive," and says that Emilia not only transitions from male to female, but "from a cartel leader responsible for the deaths of untold thousands to the founder of a nonprofit that seeks to assist the families of victims of cartel violence." Yet she ignores how the climax of the film has all of Emilia's old habits returning, her sins coming back to haunt her and showing her that she cannot escape from her previous actions.
On Them.us, the brilliant Fran Tirado said Emilia's "transition is framed as an absolution, used as a tool for deception, and made to be the reason for her redemption and saint-like anointing at the end. It is an idea of transness so completely from the cis imagination. If the film had instead realized, 'No, Emilia really is the villain,' and she kept on with her bad behavior, maybe murdered more people, spun out of control, fed her own absurdity — now that’s the movie I signed up for!"
In my viewing of the film, those are all things that do happen in the third act. Emilia really is one of the villains of her own story, and we do see her keep up with her bad behavior – kidnapping, beating, and, through her henchmen, murdering more people – and spinning out of control until it leads to her death. These acts run counter to the idea of her transition as a tool for absolution.
In one song, this thesis is stated outright. When Rita is talking to the Israeli surgeon who eventually agrees to perform Emilia's surgeries, the doctor sings to her, "If he's a he, she'll be a he. If he's a she, she'll be a she. If he's a wolf, she'll be a wolf," explaining that transitioning won't change who she is inside. This song also flatly rejects the idea that Emilia is trying to transition to absolve herself of her wrongdoings, with Rita singing, "changing gender is not an alibi," about her client.
Many of the critics of the film also ignore parts of Gascón's performance that are vital to making Emilia a three-dimensional character and act as rejections of the transphobic tropes critics say the film falls into.
One glaring flaw I've seen in much of the criticism is centered around a scene where Emilia is fighting with her ex-wife Jessi after she learns that Jessi plans on moving in with her lover. "Any time Emilia ‘reverts’ to her ‘old ways’, Gascón lowers her vocal register as if to equate masculinity with evil and femininity with good," writes Juan Barquin for Little White Lies.
Karla Sofía Gascón in 'Emilia Pérez.'Netflix
"When she becomes angry and violent toward Jessi, her voice reverts back to a deep, gravelly tone," Kyndall Cunningham at Vox said.
David Opie at Yahoo added, "The worst moment however, worse even than the fate that eventually befalls Emilia, is the moment when our protagonist angrily throws his unsuspecting wife onto a bed and threatens her using the same low, masculine voice she used pre-surgery."
Douglas Markowitz of the Miami New Times also repeated this, saying, "After learning of Jessi’s affair, Emilia switches back to Manitas’ masculine vocal register to chastise and threaten her, as if the man is still inside her."
To me, these critiques are evidence of lack of understanding trans women and are erasing the nuance of Gascón's performance.
Many trans women have naturally deep voices, and they may still use the deeper parts of their register after transition – but that does not mean they are using their old "male voice."
In the scenes where Gascón plays Manitas, she speaks with a low, monotone, dead-inside voice. It is calculated and cold, a clear performance of masculinity. Later, when she is yelling at and threatening Jessi, her voice is low and gravely (she is yelling and growling after all), but it is clearly not the same monotone, emotionless voice Manitas had. And it is clearly not as low as Manitas' voice was. This is a woman's voice.
It is part of her brilliant acting performance that was immediately obvious to me, a trans woman with a deep voice. Seeing how she was able to give Emilia a unique voice that was different from Manitas's, even when she lowers her voice and adds grit and growl, is one of the aspects that makes her performance so real.
From a lesser actor, or without the guidance of a trans woman, this character would have likely lacked those nuances in voice that make the character, and story, work so well.
To me, the film is able to completely do the opposite of what these criticisms say, specifically because Gascón injected so much of her own point of view and experiences into her performance and the story itself. And to ignore that is to erase the work of one of the most talented actresses in any film this year.
Mey Rude is a staff writer and film critic at Out magazine. Follow her on Instagram @meyrude.
