The Netflix film Emilia Pérez scored 10 Golden Globe, 10 Critics Choice, 11 BAFTA, and 13 Oscar nominations, and nabbed significant wins throughout awards season so far. Among these nominations were several historic best actress nods for Karla Sofia Gascón, as the first openly trans woman to be recognized.
It seemed like the musical crime comedy had it all ahead of Hollywood’s biggest night. But a little more than a month before the Academy Awards, it all went wrong.
On January 30, journalist Sarah Hagi found and resurfaced several offensive tweets that Gascón, who plays the film’s titular role, posted between 2016 and 2023. Gascón quickly deleted the offending tweets, deactivated her account, and issued an apology, but the damage was done. As fans and critics alike dissected the resurfaced tweets, the film’s official awards campaign began to deemphasize Gascón’s presence in the film.
One social media expert told us that the Emilia Pérez campaign team’s initial and continuing online response will be pivotal to whether the film makes an awards comeback Sunday night. Though supporting actress Zoe Saldaña has continued to nab wins at every major awards show since the controversy, Gascón has been largely absent from campaigning and awards. Whether her absence will have an effect on the film’s Oscar success, though, is still yet to be seen.
“Awards rely on public perception, and that perception is often shaped by social,” Nicole van Zanten, co-president and chief growth officer at the social media management agency Icuc, told us. “Online activity really matters…and it can certainly, as we’ve seen now, derail a campaign virtually overnight.”
Background check?
In the days after Hagi uncovered Gascón’s tweets, the actress began to formulate her response—but Netflix largely remained silent.
Gascón set up an hour-long interview with CNN en Español on her own, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and the first comment from Netflix came around two weeks later in the middle of the Oscars voting window, when Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria said on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast that “it really is a bummer for a lot of the people, like [costars] Zoe [Saldaña] and Selena [Gomez]. And our awards team did an incredible campaign for that movie.”
According to van Zanten, the streamer’s delayed and fractured response could have ultimately been detrimental to the campaign’s overall success.
“We’ve seen this initial, really defensive stance kind of prolonged the crisis and almost drew more attention to the controversy rather than resolving it,” van Zanten said.
Amid the controversy, people raised questions about Netflix’s vetting of its star actor before hiring her and its decision to design an awards campaign around her. Van Zanten said looking into stars’ and creators’ online presences is a “best practice” ahead of any work.
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“Within our practice and our agency, anytime a brand is working with an influencer, be it a microinfluencer or someone to the level [of Gascón], we do a deep dive into everything—into their post history, any sort of mentions globally in different languages,” van Zanten said.
A vetting process, according to one campaign spending source that spoke with Variety and which van Zanten confirmed, can cost between $5,000 and $20,000. That cost can cover things like proactive reputation monitoring, deep social audits, and plans for handling any potential controversies, she said.
“In this situation, for example, if we would have picked up on something, we would have had a very clear escalation path and procedure,” van Zanten said. “Delays allow for any individual to start creating a new narrative in their mind, which might be very different from the narrative that is reality. I think time is certainly of the essence.”
Netflix did not respond to Marketing Brew’s requests for comment.
Onwards and upwards?
Ahead of awards night, Gascón has been erased from campaigning efforts. A few days after the tweets resurfaced, the film’s campaign team released a new FYC poster that did not include Gascón, instead emphasizing Gomez and Saldaña. At the SAG Awards, Gascón was almost entirely left out of a highlight reel shown for Emilia Pérez. The actress stopped appearing at some awards ceremonies in the US for the remainder of the season, with The Hollywood Reporter noting that “there is no great interest on the part of Netflix to provide the usual courtesies…to facilitate her attendance at the remaining awards season gatherings,” but as of this week, the actress planned to attend the Oscars, and the streamer still planned to cover the costs for Gascón’s travel, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Some observers have assumed that Emilia Pérez’s chances Sunday night are shot—but van Zanten said that there’s still time for the film’s campaign team to reshape the narrative around the film more broadly, particularly on platforms like Instagram, where the ability to moderate and respond to comments could help them control the message.
“I’m an optimistic person; I’m of the opinion that there’s always room to bounce back, if [Netflix] can really focus on the film’s artistic achievements, and [it being] a groundbreaking opportunity for the actor herself” van Zanten said. “Coming back to that is really essential.”