Some of these performances, such as Ariana Grande’s work in the first half of the Wicked adaptation, have been met with thunderous praise; others, such as Lady Gaga’s muted role in the disastrous sequel to Joker, were sufficiently panned. Beyond that, a few musician-to-actor transitions failed to land with any impact at all. Did anyone know that it was Blue Ivy Carter who voiced the young lion Kiara in Mufasa: The Lion King?
Although this has become a more significant trend in recent years, Selena Gomez has always been a few steps ahead of her competition. Prior to becoming one of the biggest pop stars of the early 21st century, Gomez’s career started with a series of child acting roles on Barney & Friends, The Wizards of Waverly Place and Ramona & Beezus. Despite a relentless touring schedule, Gomez made time to take on more ambitious projects, such as the black comedy Spring Breakers, the animated Hotel Transylvania franchise, the controversial Woody Allen film (aren't they all at this point?) A Rainy Day in New York and the critically acclaimed Hulu comedy series Only Murders in the Building.
Her recurring role on Only Murders in the Building may have solidified Gomez as a legitimate acting talent, but she took on what was by far the most daring role of her career in the musical Emilia Perez, a work from idiosyncratic French auteur Jacques Audiard. An inventive mix of social commentary, melodrama and crime, it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last May, where it was warmly received and picked up by Netflix for distribution. After subsequent screenings at several major film festivals and a fall release date, it was clear that Emilia Perez was intended to be the streaming service’s major Oscar player for the year.
The film centers on Mexican drug lord Manitas Del Monte, played by transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón in a breakthrough performance. Manitas decides to go through with gender-affirming surgery to transition to womanhood and hires lawyer Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldana) to help her become “Emilia.” Emilia leaves her family behind as she becomes comfortable with her new identity; Gomez co-stars as Manitas’ American wife Jessi, who is also the mother of their children.
Gascón, Saldana, Gomez and their co-star Adriana Paz were jointly awarded the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival, but the response to the film grew more strained once it began screening beyond the selective festival market. One of the key critiques raised was regarding Gomez’s ability to articulate the Spanish words she spoke (and at many times, sang) in the film. In an interview with the Hablando de Cine podcast, actor Eugenio Derbez called Gomez's acting “indefensible.” Host Gaby Meza agreed: “Spanish is not her main language, not her secondary or fifth.”
Although Derbez ultimately issued an apology to Gomez, it did not entirely diminish a five-minute tirade in which he lambasted the decision to hire a non-native Spanish speaker for such a critical role. Derbez was clearly not the only Spanish speaker to share this opinion: As viral clips from the film began circulating on TikTok. Gomez responded to the criticism by stating that she “did the best I could with the time I was given." She also remarked that the nasty comments did not “take away from how much work and heart” was put into the project.
Emilia Perez has become a hot-button film that has seemingly divided all spheres of the critical community. The film has been a dominant force in the awards race, scoring 10 nominations at the Golden Globe Awards (including a Best Supporting Actress recognition for Gomez). It won four, though Gomez lost to Demi Moore for The Substance. Although the film has earned support from legendary Hollywood creatives James Cameron and Meryl Streep among others, debates about the film’s depiction of gender, race and sexual identity rose after it was made available on streaming. Critics have lambasted the film as not having “much to say about the lived experience of trans people,” with some citing the stereotypical depiction of Mexican drug cartels as “offensive.”
The issues with Emilia Perez were most certainly heightened because of its release strategy. Like many of the top awards contenders each year, it was screened only for select critics and filmmakers before making its way to festivals, and was then dumped on Netflix with little fanfare. A critic from a major publication in New York or Los Angeles may have been able to think about and consider the film for months after its initial debut, but a film fan from Dallas may have had to wait, while hearing consistent praise of the film before Emilia Perez eventually popped up at the Texas Theatre for a few days.
A sense of confusion and frustration may have followed for anyone who tuned into Emilia Perez expecting something more profound. Is this haphazard, convoluted mess really the film that could be a major Best Picture contender? In any situation where the conversation is so incendiary, it is easy to find just one scapegoat to blame for the entire ordeal. Unfortunately, Gomez’s work in the film made her the easiest target, even if it's hard to believe that she single-handedly torpedoed the entire project.
Gomez said that she did the best with the time that she had, implying that preparations to ensure that her Spanish was authentic were inadequate. The fact that no flags were waved regarding her performance prior to the film’s release suggests that there were not enough Latino voices involved in the development of the film. Director Jacques Audiard is a talented artist, but he is also a French male filmmaker engaging with sensitive issues regarding sexuality and Mexican crime dynamics.
From Barney to the Cartel
A release on Netflix means that clips of Emilia Perez are easily circulated, making it more common for individual moments to be taken out of context. Those unfamiliar with the way musicals work may be baffled by even the most basic of performative decisions, which make Gomez’s performance look even more unusual when isolated. Even then, there are moments in Emilia Perez that are more blatantly worthy of criticism than Gomez’s impressive performance of the single “Mi Camino”: a viral clip of Saldana explaining gender-affirming surgery was called out by GLAAD for being "a profoundly retrograde portrayal of a trans woman."Perhaps Gomez was hasty in accepting a role for which she may not have been well-suited, but it’s admirable that she was willing to take such a significant swing. It’s been easy for musicians to accept roles in films if they’re broadly similar to their own lives; as much as everyone loves 8 Mile, Eminem didn’t necessarily need to “transform” in order to play another struggling rapper who has issues with his mother. Gomez has, in fact, succeeded in the past in taking roles in risky projects with few commercial prospects. Although the idea of college students engaging in a crime spree in Florida may have sounded ridiculous on paper, Spring Breakers has been praised as one of the best films of the 21st century.
Another issue that Gomez ran into with Emilia Perez was the uncomplicated sincerity on which her performance hinged. If the success of films like Deadpool & Wolverine and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice over the last year have proven anything, it's that audiences seem to be willing to accept moments of emotion only if they are filtered through a few layers of jokes.
Sincerity is a virtue often saved for family-friendly projects like Inside Out 2 or Moana 2. It has become much harder for adults to accept that a film is blatantly trying to pull on their heartstrings. Although there is an edge of dark comedy within Emilia Perez, a majority of the scenes involving Gomez are played entirely straight.
Many of Gomez’s critics have negatively compared her performance to that of Ariana Grande in Wicked, which seems to be the ideal of what a musician-turned-actress should look like. However, the two films share very little in common beyond the fact that they are musicals. At the end of the day, Grande is working to emulate a previously established performance that is already familiar to a vast majority of the audience. Gomez had to create a character from scratch and was only given selective time to do so considering that she is the third-most-prominent performer in the film.
Whether Emilia Perez is good is a debate that will continue, but Gomez’s performance is certainly not the grossest offense that the film commits. Every aspect of filmmaking is a collaboration, as writers, directors, cinematographers, visual artists, makeup designers, producers and script supervisors are all involved in the decisions made. Dozens of people had to give Gomez the green light to give the performance that she did, so why are their feet also not being held to the fire?
