As the 2025 Oscars voting window inches closer and closer to closing for good on Tuesday, Netflix is standing behind its frontrunner, “Emilia Pérez.” Although, the streamer’s Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria did admit it’s a “bummer” that Karla Sofía Gascón’s racism scandal is distracting from the movie’s success.
“You know what I think is really a bummer for 100 very incredibly talented people who made an amazing movie?” she said on Friday’s episode of Matthew Belloni’s “The Town” podcast. “If you look at the nominations and all of the awards love it’s received, I think it’s such a bummer that it’s distracted from that.”
The musical’s leading actress has apologized multiple times after racist tweets of hers resurfaced mid-awards season in late January. Gascón deleted the anti-Black and anti-Muslim messages in question before ultimately deactivating her X account entirely.
“It’s not really common practice for people to vet social tweets that way,” Bajaria further noted on the podcast. “I do think it’s raising questions for a lot of people about re-evaluating that process.”
“If you asked me today — everything I know — we would still buy the movie today,” she added. “That movie is incredible. It’s creative and it’s bold and that is what you want. You want to take those big swings. So yes, there’s incredibly talented people who made that movie that, by the way, resonated with a lot of people this year.”
The Netflix exec’s comments come less than a week after Gascón’s co-star Selena Gomez shared similar sentiments of her own at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
“Some of the magic has disappeared, but I choose to continue to be proud of what I’ve done,” she said while accepting her Virtuoso Award on Sunday. “I’m just grateful and live with no regrets and I would do this movie over and over again if I could.”
In her initial apology through Netflix’s PR team, Gascón shared: “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.”
More recently, after announcing she was taking a step back from the Oscars campaign trail, Gascón was indeed notably absent from this coming weekend’s guest list for the BAFTAs. She also skipped the AFI Awards luncheon, the Critics Choice Awards and the Producers Guild Awards — though it’s unclear if she’ll be at next month’s Oscars.
Regardless, “Emilia Pérez” remains the most-nominated movie at the 97th Academy Awards, which are set to air March 2 on ABC and Hulu.
