Emilia Pérez and Trans Representation (Gone Wrong!)
The most radical thing that any of us can do is to stop projecting our beliefs about gender onto other people's behaviors and bodies.
- Julia Serano
Before I get into the depths of my highlight, here’s some things you should know about me, your lovely Secretary that I think will inform my perspective.
First, I’m a pretty big cinephile (the hesitancy is mainly cuz I’m too busy these days and lack attention span to finish things), and it’s so cool seeing queer media make a huge splash recently. In fact, just recently we’ve had of movie & TV projects like Agatha All Along (featuring a queer relationship & plot point between Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness and Aubrey Plaza’s Death), continuing seasons of shows like Heartstopper, Arcane and Good Omens among many more which have already cemented some strong representation, Monkey Man (featuring some amazing trans representation that I actually did my very first highlight on last semester!!!), I Saw the TV Glow (a very powerful and scary reflection of being closeted), Love Lies Bleeding (a lesbian muscle mommy crime drama????) and Luca Guadagnino’s Queer (yeah you can’t get more explicit than that). I’m barely scratching the surface, there’s so much around, some really good and some that just aren’t really hitting it (hence this highlight), but regardless it’s nice to see more mainstream representation. I know people like to harp on diversity, and honestly I think it’s often used more as a checkbox these days, but when done right it hits so hard, and what makes it so important is the ability to feel seen and represented in media, having characters and stories that we can relate to.
Second, Emilia Pérez (the film in question that I will be discussing), is at least in intention, an unabashed trans story, but I’m not trans in any shape or form, so I acknowledge that my understanding is flawed and not as informed as I’d want it to be. I can say that there are aspects I can relate to as someone who identifies as…error: gender does not compute fewughei0ghqe0ga (it’s a work in progress I swear I hate identifying myself on any form and I’m just tryna exist here). Regardless, I tried my best reaching out to other trans people and seeking different perspectives to be as authentic and accurate as possible, but I know that I’m just a human being too so I welcome any feedback or criticism of any sort that I can use to make these better.
This all leads me into the topic of my highlight: Emilia Pérez, a new movie that initially premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year, where it won the Jury Prize and its female ensemble won the Best Actress award. The film has racked up several awards from prestigious festivals, and is a huge frontrunner for many awards shows next year including the Academy Awards, where it’s been selected as the French entry for Best International Feature Film (that’s a pretty big thing I’m going to get into later). The film is basically a musical crime comedy drama (it’s a lot) centering around Rita (Zoe Saldana), a lawyer who is tasked with helping the titular Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofia Gascon), a notorious gangster & cartel boss, fake their death and fulfill their desire to transition as a woman.
On paper, this sounds like a very cool premise, and as was pointed out to me, really shows the media’s comfort in embracing proud LGBTQ+ villains while not conflating being queer with evil (just because we’re gay doesn’t make us all happy go lucky friendly people). Unfortunately, the film effectively just uses Emilia’s trans identity as a mere plot device. I could passably excuse the campy exaggerated dance sequence of surgeons talking about vaginoplasty (if you saw the viral clip online you know what I’m talking about - I’m told though it’s a pretty inaccurate depiction of what transitioning is like), but there are so many basic tropes here that feel less authentic and from what I’ve gathered, more like a cis person’s interpretation of what being trans is like. Emilia’s identity as transgender feels like this Jekyll & Hyde narrative where her past as a violent crime lord is associated with her masculinity but then as a trans woman she’s suddenly this really sweet person who wants to help others and leave her past behind, which to add insult to injury, includes abandoning her wife (Selena Gomez - yes she’s in this movie) and kids too (oh yeah and then they have the audacity to pull this Mrs. Doubtfire nonsense of having Emilia be a surrogate nanny to her own kids without them knowing she was one of her parents). There’s a lot of other issues with the way the trans experience is portrayed here that I won’t get into and that I probably can’t speak on, but I think you get the idea.
Emilia Pérez and the way it misrepresents the trans experience is very much a recent example of ungendering. Ungendering, as defined by writer & activist Julia Serano in her book Whipping Girl, refers to the commitment to explicitly engage in queer discourse but sanitizing their inclusion for cis-het consumption. Ungendering effectively universalizes the queer experience, which can make it accessible for cis-het audiences, but removes their humanity and complexity. And for trans individuals, this often means restricting them to defined gender norms & ideals, reinforcing harmful notions of trans objectification (huh sounds familiar…).
While I wouldn’t say that something like Emilia Pérez is actively harmful or detrimental to the LGBTQ+ movement, it speaks a lot about how trans experiences are often misunderstood and reduced to simple tropes. From what I’ve understood over the 2 years??? of being in the queer community, trans experiences aren’t something you can simply package into simple tropes, and for many it’s not a one-size-fits-all experience. A film that centers around a trans character (a trans lesbian no less) and their experiences should be something so authentic and powerful, but Emilia Pérez essentially waters it down to shallow stereotypes that end up reinforcing myths about trans people. And as we’ve seen in the real world, these kinds of misconceptions can lead directly to harmful decisions & regression of rights on a national stage. It’s ironic too that this film, a trans musical crime film set in Mexico, was written & directed by a cis French man, Jacques Audiard, and basically had no Mexicans involved in the production. That’s a shame because we deserve media that can better reflect the trans experience, and I know that there are a lot of people who will like this movie and some who will find the experiences relatable and powerful (I mean it has a 76% on rotten tomatoes and will probably win a lot of awards because of its subject matter like it already has, and personally I would be happy if some of these actresses received awards). I would say stay away, but honestly I encourage people to decide for themselves and explore their own opinions. The importance of discourse like this isn’t meant to be overly negative, but instead address misconceptions and ways in which we can make media more inclusive and reflective of real world issues and experiences. Perhaps one day we’ll have our own proper trans Mexican lesbian cartel icon.
References:
https://glaad.org/emilia-perez-is-not-good-trans-representation/
https://www.thecut.com/article/emilia-perez-netflix-movie-review.html
https://www.autostraddle.com/emilia-perez-trans-review/
https://www.them.us/story/emilia-perez-critics-gay-trans-internet-response-at-odds-representation
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