Emilia Perez is the worst film that will be nominated for the Oscars. The movie fails with an insincere take on topics and target audience while being a terrible musical. In this episode, we look at what went wrong and why everyone is mad at the movie yet it still keeps getting awards.
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00:00So, Emilia Perez just won the award for Best Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes.
00:06And all I have to say to the voters is...
00:07Boy, have you lost your mind, because I'll help you find it.
00:11It was a win that caused Challengers director, Luca Guadagnino, to literally stand up and
00:16walk out of the ceremony.
00:17Maybe he just needed to use the bathroom?
00:19Or maybe, just maybe, he too saw that Emilia Perez is some of the shallowest Oscar bait
00:24we've seen this side of the 2020s.
00:30Its entire inclusion in the awards season is less on the merit of good storytelling
00:35and more the voters using it as a big middle finger to the Trump ads that ran during this
00:39year's election cycle.
00:40But who doesn't like a film that boils the pot a little and generates a few spicy headlines?
00:45The attention would be far more warranted if Emilia Perez, on its own, was actually
00:51a competent movie.
00:52Now, this may shock you here, so hold on, but I usually don't go to movies just to see
00:57how well they stick it to a campaign slogan.
00:59Yet what I hate even more is a bad movie.
01:02And at Golden Globes, they've forced my hand here.
01:05So now, let's dive into the inferno.
01:07For those who don't know, Emilia Perez follows a Mexican drug kingpin who transitions and
01:12tries to build a new life for herself and for her family with the help of a lawyer.
01:16It's hard for me to ignore that this film really is trying to balance a lot of big hot
01:19button topics all at the same time.
01:21It's covering the Mexican drug cartels, it's covering illegal immigration into the United
01:25States from Mexico, and it's covering trans identity and rights.
01:30Director Jacques Ayudar is like a cartoon character trying to juggle a bunch of eggs
01:34and then they all end up falling on his face.
01:36Or at least they would if it wasn't for his circle of friends who are busy patting him
01:40on the back and congratulating him on turning people into topical props, all while pretentiously
01:46spewing just whatever, whatever this is all over the screen.
01:49I'd like to know about sex change operations.
01:52I see, I see, I see.
01:54From penis to vagina.
01:56Woman to man, man to woman, woman to man.
02:02So much art.
02:03So much art.
02:04I can't handle it.
02:05Do you see it?
02:06Do you see the art happening?
02:07Emilia Perez is a movie that's almost entirely in Spanish and it takes place in Mexico following
02:12a transgender woman.
02:13But it's directed by a French man who once said in a promotion, I don't need to study
02:18any of this.
02:19I already know what I need to know.
02:21As a result, this movie gets a lot of things wrong about the Mexican culture as a whole,
02:26as well as the drug trade, politics, immigration, and, well, pretty much actually everything
02:32else.
02:33Many Mexican newspapers, critics, and even industry insiders, they were calling out the
02:37movie's depiction of their culture as shallow and inauthentic.
02:40I mean, they showed that they love football.
02:44What more do you want from him?
02:45I don't know.
02:46Maybe not depicting their entire culture as a violent hellscape and, you know, having
02:50their entire nation stripped of its identity by some foreign director.
02:54Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure that would be a start.
02:57There is real cartel violence in Mexico.
03:00This shouldn't surprise anyone.
03:02This remains a major issue for the country.
03:04In the hands of UDAR, it is nothing but a means of shock value.
03:08In a place where real people are affected by rampant crime and people murdered or missing
03:12by hundreds, if not the thousands, he decides to create a main character who is a violent
03:17cartel boss who is absolved of all her crimes just because she transitioned, thus minimalizing
03:23any real world violence as just kind of empty lip service.
03:27It's just like, oh, look at that.
03:29It's the little drug cartel kingpin.
03:31She's just a normal person.
03:33Please ignore all the bloodbath, murder, kidnapping, and destruction that was all enacted on her
03:38behalf.
03:39Nothing to see here.
03:40Everything about this setting is superficial and kind of surface level, all for this movie
03:44that's really trying to make Mexico a central location and narrative factor.
03:48Its attempts to cover issues here are all pretty poorly researched and half-assed.
03:52The director can't even be bothered to hire people who actually speak the language.
03:57Zoe Saldana, fortunately for her, she got away better on this front.
04:01I think she did actually know some Spanish from when she was a kid and then forgot it
04:04and then had to relearn it.
04:06Does she come off as a fluent and Mexican native?
04:08No, not really.
04:10But she was convincing enough for those Golden Globe voters who gave her the award for best
04:14supporting actress.
04:15I'm Mexican.
04:16Really?
04:17You know, this is all despite her character being this empty yes man who has no desire
04:22of her own outside of the first act and just becomes boring besties with a mass murdering
04:27sociopath and treats it all like this is some big positive thing.
04:31She at least isn't on the same level of a disaster as Selena Gomez.
04:35Now Gomez reportedly had only a few short weeks to learn Spanish and then proceeded
04:40to completely butcher the language both in conversation and in song.
04:45You know, as if one wasn't enough.
04:47I can see why an actress would take a complex role that they may not be right for.
04:51Who doesn't want to challenge themselves in their career?
04:53But what I can't understand for the life of me is why a director would choose these
04:58actors for these roles.
05:00Now just as an example, if I made a movie set in Kansas about a family of multi-generational
05:04farmers, I'd probably want to hire actors that actually, you know, spoke English fluently
05:10given that they're supposed to have been here for a very long time.
05:13I can only imagine for native Spanish speakers that this is as distracting as if you made
05:18A River Runs Through It, yet for some reason Brad Pitt keeps speaking with a thick Australian
05:22accent the whole time.
05:24But he isn't Australian?
05:25Crikey mate, that's a pretty big fish.
05:29I am very good at accents.
05:30Maybe they'll give me a Golden Globe.
05:32Or you can give me a like and subscribe if you're enjoying this.
05:34If that didn't send you away.
05:36Right there.
05:37Please, though, take some time to pity the poor, poor casting director because apparently
05:42she had no choice but to cast English-speaking actors.
05:45Allegedly, she couldn't hire native-speaking actors because, to her, there were not enough
05:51good Mexican actors or actresses, you know, in the entire country.
05:55Yeah, I'm sure that one's going to go over really well.
05:58The director, he lazily tries to justify Mexicans who can't speak Spanish by giving every single
06:03character non-native birthplaces.
06:06This was apparently shoehorned into the script last minute.
06:09The only conclusion I can draw is I don't think the makers could care less about correctly
06:13portraying this part of the world or its people.
06:16It was more about the optics of caring.
06:18But this movie, it's more about the trans experience, you may be saying.
06:21Giving voice to a minority group.
06:23Right now, I'm working on a video that covers 1919's Different From the Others, the first
06:27ever feature to openly feature gay characters.
06:30Made in Germany at a time when the anti-gay laws there meant that you could have been
06:33thrown in prison just for being gay.
06:35The film was trying to argue for decriminalization and against persecution.
06:39Now why am I bringing this up?
06:41Because gay men and women at this time were actually shunned from society, so the movie,
06:45they really sought to humanize them with a larger part of the population.
06:49To get this right, they worked very closely with a famed sexologist at the time, Magnus
06:53Hirschfeld, who even got a writing credit for the screenplay.
06:56Hirschfeld was deeply embedded in these communities, both for his written works and his sociological
07:01studies.
07:02Different From the Others, it faced protests, people trying to destroy the film, and later
07:06even the Nazi party tried to hunt down every copy.
07:09Only one managed to survive, that's why we have it today, at least in part.
07:13Different From the Others put in that effort to be authentic in its subject matter and
07:17took the time to get the genuine perspective from the community.
07:20The director here can't manage that level of effort.
07:23Not when he claims he already knows everything he needs to know.
07:27So, good for him, I guess.
07:29Trans actress Carla Sofia Gerson actually comes out of this thing looking probably the
07:32best out of everyone and gives probably the strongest performance.
07:36She's doing the best she can with the material that provides very little in the way of favors.
07:40Beyond the script that features poor pacing, bad character motivation, and a lack of just
07:46general research, what do you know?
07:48It turns out the trans community doesn't seem that fond of this film either, at least
07:52as far as I've been able to see.
07:53Iudart, he treats transitioning like almost this death and rebirth, that Emilia's old
07:58self as Menidas was evil and violent.
08:00When she becomes Emilia, she is almost absolved of all these terrible crimes, reborn in a
08:05way, which allows her to say, hey, new year, new me, and then the film portrays her as
08:10entirely sympathetic, free of accountability, and almost a completely disconnected person.
08:16The problem with that is that even within trans circles, they don't see identity as
08:20working this way.
08:21They don't suddenly lose all responsibility and agency for actions taken before transitioning.
08:27They don't become just this blank slate, and their old life doesn't become this repressed
08:31persona like it's Gollum.
08:33And that's not even getting into the kind of heavy misandry of blaming Emilia's old
08:36violent actions on her past masculinity, and that it's only in transitioning to womanhood
08:42that she discovers her softer, gentler side, okay?
08:46It doesn't matter.
08:47She still did all those terrible things, like murder, kidnapping, drug trade.
08:52The movie wants you to forget all of that, and it works very, very hard to misdirect
08:56your attention.
08:57And I'm not even getting into the half of it here.
09:00There are many, many more trans kind of no-nos that they did here, such as deadnaming a trans
09:06woman, abandoning her child after transitioning, and then reversing, and I guess kind of mis-doubt-firing
09:12her kids.
09:13Hello!
09:14Right?
09:15A trans woman having her male side emerge in a scene where she's angry and overpowering
09:20her ex-wife.
09:21And then there's a song where a kid sings, like, uh, You Smell Like Papa.
09:28All of it not great.
09:30And again, another stellar song.
09:32My point is not that I'm deeply offended by all of this, and I'm not going to pretend
09:35that I'm really, really entrenched in this community.
09:38I'm not.
09:39I'm an outsider.
09:40My point is that this guy, this guy probably understands it even less than I do.
09:45And if the movie's clumsy attempts at understanding its own subject matter, that wasn't enough.
09:49This is a director who very clearly has been getting a little too high on his own supply.
09:54Yudar, he is an artiste, okay, an artiste.
09:58And he will be damned if you forget it for more than two seconds.
10:01Why, why would they decide to make this a musical, you may be asking?
10:04Especially when the songs are terrible.
10:05Lady, will you please tell your Mr. Mystery, instead of having plastic surgery, he'd better
10:12change ID.
10:15Changing the body changes society.
10:17Changing society changes the soul.
10:19Changing the soul changes society.
10:21Changing society changes it all.
10:23And most of the blocking kind of looks like a high school production.
10:26Well, that would probably be because somebody told the director that America really likes
10:30to give award to musicals.
10:32And hey, musicals are back, so why not?
10:35Nevermind, the musical Numbers feels very oddly out of place.
10:39Every single one of them.
10:40They're all very jarring.
10:41This is the sort of musical that makes me long for Joker 2 by comparison.
10:45That is winging on me.
10:51These sequences were poorly directed, cringe inducing, and made me want to go watch Wicked
10:55again to properly wash my eyes out.
10:58Now that was a movie that knew how to do a musical.
11:01Many Spanish speakers have pointed out how cheesy the lyrics are in their native language.
11:05And that's no surprise to me.
11:08They were cheesy when I read them as subtitles.
11:15It gets even better though.
11:16Add in some over-the-top, on-again, off-again, artsy-fartsy expressionism that makes wine
11:22drinkers in France and Napa Valley feel really cultured.
11:25Now you've got the makings of a movie that's excess in style and lacking in tonal cohesion.
11:30Listen, there was another movie that came out called I Saw the TV Glow.
11:34While I also was not a fan of this one, I can at least appreciate how it was embraced
11:38by the target audience and had a layer of effective subtext for them.
11:41It also had a consistency in its style, even though I personally failed to connect with it.
11:46It successfully knew its audience.
11:48Emilia Perez, it also knows its audience.
11:51It's just, you know, not the trans community.
11:53And it's certainly not people who live in Mexico either.
11:55No, its target audience is Hollywood elites.
11:59These are the people who like to talk about their refined film palate over a charcuterie
12:02board of cheese and crackers, all while not having the awareness that they're actually
12:06drinking grape juice and eating wheat thins with cheese whiz.
12:09For them, it is more about what is being served, not the quality of what is on the plate.
12:15Emilia Perez has decided that this, this is their target group and it's hit it dead center.
12:20If this all sounds familiar, it is because this is not our first time around the block.
12:24Back in 2004, the Academy chose what many consider now to be the worst best picture
12:28ever.
12:29You may remember it.
12:31It's crash.
12:32At the time crash was released, people again were maybe too concerned with optics rather
12:37than the actual quality of the storytelling.
12:39Voters felt it was saying the right things about race in America at that time.
12:43However, in the process, it was actually kind of making a more shallow and melodramatic
12:48case for its arguments, all while creating stereotypes and kind of almost nearly doing
12:53the exact same thing it was preaching against.
12:56Voters were reduced to just these flat tropes.
12:59It felt like a soap opera and the tone had almost this edge of being like a sermon, like
13:03you were being preached to.
13:05But it was a sermon on topics that clearly they had a pretty minimal grasp on.
13:10What do I know, though?
13:11It all led to Oscar gold.
13:12History has a way of repeating itself time and time again.
13:16If the Oscar voters, they don't wake up and smell the roses, they may be heading for another
13:19just widely publicized embarrassment.
13:22I would not be surprised to see Amelia Perez end up as the crash of 2024.
13:27As it stands, it's among one of my worst movies of 2024.
13:30It's disastrous as a musical.
13:36It's kind of offensive to Mexicans, and it's certainly out of touch with the trans perspective.
13:41It's a mess of a movie full of despicable murderers and dirty lawyers, and the film
13:45just wants me to root for them when really I happily prefer to see them all behind bars.
13:50But that's all I got.
13:52Now go to my comment section.
13:53Go.
13:54I'm sorry.
13:55What now?
13:56I will be back with hopefully finally my 1919 in film video very, very soon, as well as
14:02more modern day analysis.
14:04As always, please keep those wheels turning.