Why did ‘Emilia Peréz’ actually receive 13 Oscar nominations?

The nominees for the 2025 Academy Awards, commonly referred to as the Oscars, were announced on Thursday. The most surprising takeaway came in the 13 nominations garnered by Emilia Peréz: a musical following the story of a cartel leader seeking to fake his death and become a woman. The Netflix film and its transgender narrative immediately created buzz in the build-up for the March 2nd awards ceremony, where it will seek the ultimate prize: Best Picture.

Emilia Peréz is now among a small group of choice films like Forrest Gump, Mary Poppins, and Fellowship of the Ring with its near-record 13 nominations. Only three movies have ever received more. 

It is not unique for the Academy to artificially boost the prominence and success of movies with overt progressive agendas. In this case, Emilia Peréz has just a 26% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, 2.4 stars out of 5 on Letterboxd, and 6.1 stars out of 10 on IMDb. Every Best Picture winner in the last 60 years has at least a 7.1 rating on IMDb. 

Of all the nominations the film received, the most controversial is for the movie’s star transgender actor–Karla Sofía Gascón. Gascón is a nominee for Best Actress in a Leading Role, despite being a biological male.

Transgender activists have long argued for greater tolerance by claiming that transgenderism does not harm anybody but, conversely, makes the individual who transitioned happier. Aside from the strong evidence to suggest that transgenderism does in fact harm the person transitioning, it is clear that it also harms women who have opportunities taken from them by biological men. 

Regardless of who wins the award for Best Actress, the Academy already gave Gascón one of the five prized nomination spots, meaning one less biological female is being recognized for her performance. In December, Gascón was awarded Best Actress at the European Film Awards.

America’s cultural shift

Last week’s Oscar nomination announcement put Emilia Peréz under the spotlight of public discourse. While activists praised the news, others spoke out against it. The critics largely fall into two camps: either they believe the movie is simply not worthy of award status, regardless of its progressive narrative, or they fit into a growing group of Americans who are exhausted by transgender activism. 

A New York Times/Ipsos poll from earlier this month posed multiple questions related to transgenderism, and the results represent a profound shift among the population. 

• 49 percent of Americans believe society has gone too far in accommodating transgender people, compared to 38 percent in a June 2022 Pew Research study. 
• 79 percent of Americans believe that biological males should not be allowed to compete in female sports, compared to just 58 percent in 2022. 
• 71 percent of Americans believe that minors should not be able to transition genders with medical assistance, compared to just 46 percent in 2022.

The Emilia Peréz conversation is another addition to the catalog of transgender controversies. While many corporations and organizations are following the trends of the American public in pulling back layers of social progressivism, Hollywood continues to embrace it. Should the film win the Oscar for Best Picture, or Gascón win Best Actress, it will just be one step further from reality for an annual event that now draws roughly half the television audience it did in the early 2010s.

Stand for truth

Christians have a duty to stand for truth. God designed humanity to be male and female, made in His image (Genesis 1:27, 5:1-2). A culture that celebrates the confusion of God’s biological order is adverse to a biblical Worldview. 

Christians also have a duty to stand for justice. As in the well-documented 2022 NCAA Swimming Championship, an opportunity was stripped away from another qualified woman. Injustice occurs when one individual is elevated on the premise of a lie (their gender) at the detriment of another.

In response, pray that God would continue to open the eyes of our culture to truths about basic biology and, even more importantly, Jesus. At the same time, we must never waver in our own commitment to truth and justice. 

It is easy to care about these virtues when it is a hot-button issue that may not require much investment or sacrifice from us. But what about when you need to stand up for truth in the midst of complicated family drama? Or when you need to stand up for justice in an unethical workplace dilemma? We must act with integrity and faithfulness in all aspects of our lives, whether it is as simple as our feelings toward the Oscars or when it may actually cost us something.

Read Denison Forum’s extensive look at the topic of transgenderism, and what the Bible has to say, here.