Scandals throw Best Actress Oscar category into chaos
The Best Actress category at this year’s Academy Awards is in a shambles, with two out of the five contenders now mired in controversy.
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The Best Actress category at this year’s Academy Awards is in a shambles, with two out of the five contenders now dealing with controversies around their past public output.
Days after I’m Still Here actor Fernanda Torres was forced to issue a grovelling public apology for a past role in which she wore blackface, Emilia Perez actor Karla Sofía Gascón is under fire for a number of troubling resurfaced tweets.
Gascón, the first openly transgender woman to be nominated for an acting Oscar, has deleted tweets from her account on a number of issues including Islam and George Floyd, since they started to circulate widely in recent days.
In November 2020, the Spanish actor complained of “more and more Muslims in Spain” and wrote that: “Every time I go to pick up my daughter from school there are more women with their hair covered and their skirts down to their heels. Maybe next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.”
Another tweet saw her call to “ban religions that go against European values and violate human rights, such as Islam.”
And Gascón also took aim at the Oscars after the 2021 ceremony, which saw the acclaimed drama Nomadland, which focused on the issue of homelessness, take out the Best Picture award.
“More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala,” she wrote.
Black actor Daniel Kaluuya had won the Best Supporting Actor at that ceremony, while South Korean actress Youn Yuh-jung won the Best Supporting Actress trophy.
In another tweet from 2020, Garcon wrote of Covid vaccines: “The Chinese vaccine, aside from the mandatory chip, comes with two spring rolls, a waving cat, two plastic flowers, a collapsible lantern, three phone lines, and one euro for your first controlled purchase.”
Writer Sarah Hagi was among several people on X who highlighted the old tweets. She wrote: “It’s so insane that karla sofía gascón still has these tweets up. straight up have never seen tweets this racist from someone actively campaigning to win an ACADEMY AWARD. there are more than a dozen …”
Garcon has today publicly apologised for her past tweets, releasing the following statement: “I want to acknowledge the conversation around my past social media posts that have caused hurt. As someone in a marginalized community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain. All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”
The controversy comes after fellow Best Actress nominee Torres issued a public apology earlier this week for wearing blackface for her role in a Brazilian sketch comedy series that aired 17 years ago.
“Almost 20 years ago, I appeared in Blackface in a comedy sketch from a Brazilian TV show,” she said in her statement. “I am very sorry for this. I’m making this statement as it is important for me to address this swiftly to avoid further pain and confusion.”
And in an even messier twist, Garcon also courted controversy this week with her comments about Torres, alleging her fellow nominee’s team had been orchestrating a smear campaign against her.
“I have never, at any point, said anything bad about Fernanda Torres or her movie,” she said in an interview. “However, there are people working with Fernanda Torres tearing me and Emilia Pérez down. That speaks more about their movie than mine.”
She later insisted that her comments were not an attack on Torres but on “toxicity and violent hate speech on social media”.
This year’s Best Actress Oscar category is a tight race, with hotly-tipped favourites like Nicole Kidman (Babygirl) and Angelina Jolie (Maria) missing out on nominations altogether.
Nominated alongside Gascon and Torres are Demi Moore for The Substance, Cynthia Erivo for Wicked and Mikey Madison for Anora.
Moore and Torres, who respectively won the Best Actress in a Drama / Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy awards at the Golden Globes earlier this month, are considered the two favourites to win.
Emilia Perez leads the field for nominations at tis year’s Oscars, up for 13 awards.
The 97th Academy Awards will be held Monday March 3 in Los Angeles, and will air locally on Seven.
Originally published as Scandals throw Best Actress Oscar category into chaos
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