The most prestigious awards ceremony in the film industry takes place next month and the nominees follow in the footsteps of greatness. This will be the 97th edition of the Academy Awards, better known as 'the Oscars', and the recent nominations revealed the front runner for headline glory - and potential record breaker. Unusually, it is a French film. Even more unusually, it is a Spanish-language film. The film's name is Emilia Pérez and the reason for its 13 nominations will soon become clear...
Now, a film with 13 nominations is always in with a chance of making history as the current record number of Oscar wins is 11. That record was set in 1960 by Ben Hur and has since been equalled by Titanic (1998) and The Return of the King (2004). Only three films have received more nominations than Emilia Pérez - the aforementioned Titanic, plus All About Eve (1951) and La La Land (2017) all received a record 14 nominations. Therefore, you would think that Emilia Pérez is one Hell of a film, especially given it is a foreign made and foreign language film? Right?
Wrong!
Despite being a Spanish-language film set in Mexico, Emilia Pérez has been universally panned in that country. At the time of writing it has a woeful 17 per cent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and, despite its subject matter, only 72 per cent among establishment critics. It's hardly a ringing endorsement of the most Oscar-nominated foreign language film ever, is it?
So, what is the film about? And herein lies the reason this dreadful production got 13 nods - for Emilia Pérez is about a man who 'transitions' to a woman.
You think it's bad that the Oscar committee chose a film purely to push a political message? Wait until you hear who it put up for 'best actress'... that's right - the biological man who plays the title role!
Unfortunately for the Oscars, their decision to push the woke agenda backfired spectacularly, when the aforementioned lead male was found to have posted numerous tweets daring to criticise Islam and Saint George Floyd among others. Oh dear. Having previously promoted the musical trans film and its lead, the establishment campaign screeched into a 180 degree turn now that the tranny was revealed to be a huge racist! Netflix airbrushed Carlos Gascón aka 'Karla' from posters and the actor deleted his X account. It remains to be seen whether the film will win any of the awards it was no doubt previously destined for...
The Oscars have form when it comes to political nominations. The most obvious example of this came in 2019 when a film called Black Panther gained seven nominations, including best picture. Superhero films seldom gain recognition at the Oscars and no comic book adaptation had ever been nominated for best picture prior to this. For those who don't know, Black Panther is based upon a black Marvel comic hero who rules over an isolationist and technologically advanced fictional African nation (yes, that synopsis alone is a can of worms).
Black Panther was part of the mighty Marvel Cinematic Universe and was its 18th film production. It would become the first MCU film to win an Oscar - three in fact - despite not generally considered by fans to be the best in the series. Better films, such as Captain America: Winter Solder and Avengers: Endgame, received two nods between them and zero wins. Finally, and here's the kicker, the only other film in the history of the MCU to win an Academy Award is... Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - the sequel to Black Panther!
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