At this point, I am absolutely sure that everyone has heard about the movie Emilia Pérez. I, for once, need to say that I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s hard not to know what it is about and the controversies involving it. The musical film was nominated for 13 Oscars and won Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language, representing France in the Golden Globes.
WHAT IS EMILIA PÉREZ ABOUT AND WHAT IS WRONG WITH IT?
Emília Pérez tells the story of a lawyer (Zoe Saldaña) who is assigned to help a drug cartel leader to fake death to do a gender-affirming surgery and live a new life as a woman (Karla Sofía Gascón).
The movie is set in Mexico but has most of its cast from the United States of America and a Spanish lead. That was explained by the casting director with a supposed “lack of good actors in Mexico”; not only that, but the entire thing is based on Mexican — and Latin American in general — stereotypes. That makes sense when you find out that the director and writer, Jacques Audiard, said he did not need to study or learn anything because what he already knew about Mexico was enough to make this film (the same dude that also said in an interview that Spanish is a language “of the poor”).
The way this entire movie is done is seen as an offense to Mexicans, especially considering that it is about a sensitive topic: drug cartels and missing people.
In conclusion, this film is anything but latino, and it’s definitely not a good Mexican representation (not to mention, it is also a bad trans representation, but we’ll get there). This is why it caused so much controversy in this awards season, and that was before the discovery of the not-so-old tweets from Karla Sofía Gascón, who played the lead Emília.
The trans representation was also very criticised by the transcommunity. One of the major criticisms is that the movie shows an excessive surgery search as if Emilia could only actually become “a real woman” if she did the surgery and looked so extremely different that not even her own family could recognize her.
A lot of trans people feel well in their own bodies and don’t intend to do it, but, in the movie, it is clear that the director and writers decided to take a shortcut and poorly represent trans experience with stereotypes. An example is the song “La Vaginoplastia”, in which the doctor quotes all of the procedures necessary to, as he says, turn “penis to vagina”. Another point is that the gender transition is shown as kind of a way of escaping the law and restarting, like it would erase Emilia’s past, making her become a completely different person.
WHAT IS JOHANNE SACREBLU?
Amidst all the turmoil, a group of Mexicans decided to respond to the film, showing their dissatisfaction. That response was the musical short-film Johanne Sacreblu, created by Camilla D. Aurora, available to watch for free on YouTube. The idea is to use French stereotypes to satirize Emília Pérez. Call it a “payback”, if you will.
The story is about a french trans girl called Johanne who comes from a family that owns a baguette business. Johanne went to Mexico for an exchange program and transitioned while she was there, and, when she came back, her parents were shocked, but still wanted her to take over the family business to compete against the Ratatouille family, who sell croissants. To decide which bread is the best, croissants or baguettes, the families set up a competition between Johanne and Artugo Ratatouille.
The interesting thing about it, is that the entire script is kind of crappy on purpose because the major idea is to satirize Emilia Pérez using all of the French stereotypes as if they didn’t study the culture, just like Jaques didn’t study Mexico, basing the dialogues and character behaviours all upon the idea people have of France.
There are rats on the screen in all scenes, a joke about the famous Disney movie Ratatouille and even LadyBug and Cat Noir, from the French kid’s cartoon, are seen in the back of one of the scenes fighting and are presenters of the bread competition. Besides that, there are a lot of jokes about the famous pickpockets, most of the characters have a doddle of a funny moustache in their face and even the accent is forced.
Also, it is reinforced all the time that French people are racist, xenophobic, homophobic, rude, shower-avoiders and that France is a dirty, polluted and violent country. That might sound a lot of generalising, right? Well, that is exactly what the Emília Pérez crew did in their movie, showing just the part of Mexico that the eurocentric vision sees.
THE IMPORTANCE OF LATINO REPRESENTATION
In conclusion, as a Brazilian, I’m biased when I say that I am hoping that I’m Still Here wins all the Oscar categories it was nominated for. But I also think it is necessary to talk about it when it comes to the Emilia Pérez subject, as Mexicans are cheering for the Brazilian film since it is an actual latino movie made by actual latinos telling our own story in a sensitive and responsible way.
Us latinos should tell our own stories from our own point of view, outside of the eurocentric perception of who we are. The sincerity and honesty of Brazilian director Walter Salles is what made I’m Still Here so good, even if it doesn’t end up winning anything, because it is already part of our history. Meanwhile, Emília Pérez can win as many awards as it can, but it will never have the same impact as the Brazilian movie had– on the contrary, it only managed to make the people it supposedly represents mad.
Johanne Sacreblu is going to have a sequel, as the creator and lead Camila has announced, and definitely with more sassiness and smart punchlines as ever, and I can’t wait to watch it. And to finish off, would you like a fun fact? Johanne Sacreblu is currently higher rated in IMDb (9,6) than the movie it satirizes (5,5). What about that?
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The article above was edited by Marina di Bernardo Babichak.
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