Hollywood has had a bit of a shock recently. Hotly tipped Oscar darling Emilia Perez was looking like sweeping the board with its seemingly award-winning mix of transgender themes, ethnic centricity, and musicality. How could your average Academy member resist such central programming, pulsing out from the mothership?
So imagine their surprise when transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón turned out to be fully from the Based Department.
In January 2025, following Gascón’s Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for Emilia Perez, writer Sarah Hagi resurfaced a series of posts made by Gascón. These posts have been accused of being (deep breath) Islamophobic, antisemitic, racist, homophobic, body shaming, Catalanophobic, and Sinophobic. The full house!
Coming from a transgender actress who was their anointed awards darling, Hollywood simply could not compute.
Posts included one on X Islam a “hotbed of infection for humanity”, and another in reaction to the 93rd Academy Awards wondering if the Oscars had become an “Afro-Korean festival”, a “Black Lives Matter demonstration”, or International Women’s Day.
Star Zoe Saldaña said she was still “processing” but insisted she was “allowing myself to still experience joy”. Now Hollywood has finished literally shaking, passed the “can’t even” stage, and has seemingly decided what to do. Yes, it’s a good ol’ fashioned cancellation. The pop culture equivalent of a lynching.
Director Jacques Audiard is distancing himself from the controversy completely by disavowing her so hard that Ethan Hunt thinks it’s a bit much.
He told Deadline that he hasn’t spoken to her and “I don’t want to,” also saying she is “in a self-destructive approach that I can’t interfere in, and I really don’t understand why she’s continuing.” He went on to say:
“Why is she harming herself? Why? I don’t understand it, and what I don’t understand about this too is why she’s harming people who were very close to her. I’m thinking in this thing of how hurting others, of how she’s hurting the crew and all these people who worked so incredibly hard on this film.”
Netflix is also putting up barriers between themselves and the actress as they try and avoid a backlash costing them the Oscars. They have withdrawn the expenses for her travel to the awards and removed her styling budget.
The Oscars themselves are, according to Variety, going to forgo their usual “Fab 5” tradition for actors. So last year’s Best Actress winner won’t be forced to come on stage and gush over Gascon’s performance. This year, they will instead do Directors.
Karla Sofía Gascón, for crimes of Wrongthink…
