Netflix has broken its silence on the controversy over “Emilia Pérez,” the streaming giant’s musical drama, which earned 13 Academy Award nominations.
While the film has been heaped in praise for months, things took a turn recently when old social media posts from trans-identifying actor Karla Sofía Gascón, who plays the main character, resurfaced and went viral. The posts put forth controversial takes on hot topics, including George Floyd, Muslims, and diversity at the Oscars.
Now Gascón has become persona non grata, with many in the film industry, including “Emilia Pérez” director Jacques Audiard, disavowing him.
Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria gave her take on the situation during an interview on “The Town” podcast, echoing what many others have been saying and placing blame firmly on the film’s star rather than defending his actions.
“I think it’s really a bummer for the 100 incredibly talented people who made an amazing movie,” Bajaria said, per Variety. “And if you look at the nominations, and all of this awards love that it’s received, I think it’s such a bummer that it distracted from that.”
She continued, “It really has kind of taken the conversation in a different way [from] this incredible movie that Jacques Audiard — who is an incredible director — has made. It really is a bummer for a lot of the people, like [co-stars] Zoe [Saldaña] and Selena [Gomez]. And our awards team did an incredible campaign for that movie.”
The Netflix exec responded to a question about potentially vetting a star’s social media accounts by saying, “It’s not really common practice for people to vet social tweets that way … A lot of people are reevaluating that … I do think it is raising questions for a lot of people about reevaluating that process.”
Bajaria added, “I think you also have to [ask]: Are we going to actually look at the personal social media of tens of thousands of people, every single day around the world, [given the] amount of original film and TV and co-prods that we make and license? It raises a lot of questions about what that should look like.”
She said despite the backlash, it’s all been worth it.
“If you ask me today, everything I know, we would still buy the movie today. That movie is incredible and it’s creative and it’s bold — that’s what you want, and it resonated with a lot of people this year,” Bajaria concluded.
Gascón has apologized multiple times but is still being chastised and has been uninvited from events to promote “Emilia Pérez” before the Oscars ceremony.
