The Agony of Being Mexican and Witnessing Emilia Pérez’s Success

As a born-and-raised Mexican woman living in Mexico City, it has been shocking, infuriating, and heartbreaking to see Emilia Perez rack up so many awards and nominations this year. Now, we try to keep things positive in the ReSee Series and prefer to talk about films we love rather than those we dislike, but this goes far beyond my belief that the film itself is pretty bad; this is about the fact that Emilia Pérez is a dangerously ignorant film whose muddled humor and musical numbers make light of an issue that to Mexicans is no laughing matter.

The horror of drug cartels is something that has affected nearly every Mexican community, and I welcome any film that helps to educate and enlighten global audiences about important social issues in my country. Emilia Perez also touches on prevalent topics like trans rights, security, identity, and freedom, all of which are extremely important to examine through the lens of film. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that this film, its cast, its perspective, and especially its director could not be less Mexican. 

The baffling success that the part-comedy-part-musical-part-crime-thriller(??) has enjoyed this awards season has meant that this movie couldn’t just come and go as another example of Hollywood’s penchant for egregious cultural misrepresentation. Instead, Jacques Audiard, the French director of this film, has done interview after interview advocating for awards consideration, all the while proving just how little he actually cares about the social issues his film exploits. 

For example, before a screening at the 2024 Morelia International Film Festival, when Audiard was asked how much research he had to do on Mexico to make the film, he responded “I didn’t study much. I kinda already knew what I had to understand”.

Oof.

A cisgender, white, European man who believes that he doesn’t have to research the culture and the society that he’s chosen as the settings for his film. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

a quick Google search and you’ll find more and more clips and quotes of Audiard digging his heels further and further into the ground to campaign for awards and in response to backlash from both the Mexican and Trans communities. In another interview, he even referred to Spanish as “the language of developing countries, of modest countries, of poor people and migrants”...not the perspective you want from someone making a Spanish language film.

Time after time, this man has made it clear that he does not admire and appreciate Mexican culture, and it’s disheartening that Hollywood studios continue to give opportunities to filmmakers with this level of arrogance simply because they’re from a wealthy Western country and have won awards for other unrelated stories. We’ve seen it many times before in films such as the Best Picture-winning Green Book, whose attempt at whitewashing was vehemently protested by close relatives of the Black protagonist, Don Shirley. Surely we’ll continue to see it until Hollywood studios are held accountable for their heinous cultural appropriation.

And that’s why I’m writing this article. The only way we’ll get studios to commit to properly representing people, cultures, and social issues is if we stand up and let them know that no amount of awards they manage to finesse through elaborate PR campaigns will garner the respect of the people who have to watch their trauma become a punch line on screen. 

Now, as an aspiring filmmaker myself who loves Mexico with all my heart despite its problems, I’ll be the first to cheer for a Mexican film done right. Netflix, the same studio that distributed Emilia Pérez, also took a chance on Roma, a beautiful film directed by national treasure Alfonso Cuarón, which does an incredible job at representing both the light and darkness of Mexican culture. I’m extremely grateful to them for their role in getting that movie distributed. But I’d still rather not have any of those positive stories if it also means studios use their global platform to peddle exploitative films like Emilia Pérez.

I love that cinema gives us the opportunity to explore other cultures and histories from our own homes, and I’m so proud that Mexico, which is the only non-US country to have back-to-back-to back Best Director winners at the Oscars, has gained more and more success and visibility in the past couple of decades. I encourage everyone to experience World Cinema as a way of promoting cultural exchange and understanding. But when we do so, we have to make sure that the films we watch, especially those touching on serious topics and real traumas, are created by filmmakers who understand the importance of sensitivity, representation, and respect. Sadly, in my opinion Emilia Pérez is not a movie that fits that bill. Whether you choose to watch it or not, I just hope that you keep that in mind.

To end this article on a positive note and with a hope that Hollywood will some day change its habits, here are some fantastic Mexican films that properly represent Mexico, our people, our culture, and yes, even our problems:

• Amores Perros, The debut feature film from the future Oscar-winning director Alejandro González Iñárritu is the first part of a trilogy known as the “Death Trilogy” (along with 21 Grams and Babel). All three films also touch on many of Mexico’s social issues, but it is done with sensitivity and honesty
• For those who love coming of age tales or road movies, view Mexico through the eyes of its teenagers by checking out Güeros, directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios.
• Los Olvidados, also known as “The Young and the Damned” in the United States, is a great place to start for those who are unfamiliar with the legendary multinational filmmaker Luis Buñuel.
• And last but not least, my all time favorite Mexican movie has to be Y Tu Mamá También, once again by Alfonso Cuarón.