There's plenty to talk about regarding the 97th annual Academy Award nominations, most of it the usual hullabaloo over perceived surprises (Jeremy Strong for Best Supporting Actor! Coralie Fargeat for Best Director! Nickel Boys and I'm Still Here for Best Picture! Wicked for Best Original Score!) and snubs (No Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Best Actress!! No Will & Harper for Best Documentary! Nothing for Challengers or All We Imagine as Light!).

But the biggest news is France's Mexican-cartel, Trans-centered musical Emilia Pérez scoring a whopping 13 nods, including a history-making Best Actress nomination for Karla Sofía Gascón.

Something of a critical and awards darling ever since its May 2024 debut at the Cannes Film Festival, director Jacques Audiard's topical endeavor has still left some viewers — especially Trans and Mexican audiences — wondering what all the fuss is about. To call it polarizing would understate things considerably. Some critics, like Danielle Solzman, have called the film "dangerous for transgender representation," while others, like Gabriela Meza, have labeled it "visually striking but culturally tone-deaf."

But, considering the current political climate and recent attempts by the Trump administration to marginalize and silence Transgender and immigrant communities with an onslaught of noxious executive orders, do the picture's cultural and representational flaws matter? Or is it better to have a prestigious body like the Academy Awards proclaiming Audiard's opus one of the year's best pictures, even with its notable imperfections?

There are no quick or simple answers. Gascón, a multitalented actor who started her career on television and has become an international icon, is the first openly Trans performer to be nominated for an Academy Award. Her performance as Emilia/Manitas is undeniably impressive, growing in intensity and gravitas as her character inches closer to her inevitably tragic face-off against violent forces.

However, instead of busting stereotypes, Audiard and his creative team have seemingly — and it appears unintentionally — reinforced them instead. Manitas, the former head of a powerful Mexican drug cartel, hires Rita (Zoe Saldaña), an ambitious lawyer, to secretly facilitate his disappearance and transition into Emilia, the woman he longs to be, leaving wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and two children clueless.

That's not great in and of itself, but fast-forward to Emilia's clandestine return to Mexico from abroad. Not only does she force Rita and her children to live with her without knowing her true identity (she convinces them she is Manitas' estranged sister, who now feels it is her duty to take care of them), she also attempts to make herself something of a saint by helping grieving families who have lost loved ones to cartel violence to discover what happened to them.

Couple that with the rightwing political debate that Transwomen are nothing more than sexual and antifeminist predators who put on "woman drag" to secretly invade women-only safe spaces, about which Audiard's hot-button drama says precious little. For those who want to purposefully read the picture's themes in the absolute worst light, Emilia's actions, whether they are intended to be or not, clearly appear to be predatory to the casual viewer, and this by itself makes the production the very definition of "problematic."

Yet there is something to be said about having Trans representation up there on the Oscar stage at the Dolby Theatre that is unavoidably significant. There is power in seeing Gascón being part of the Best Actress lineup alongside Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Mikey Madison (Anora), Demi Moore (The Substance), and Fernanda Torres (I'm Still Here). This is momentous, to be certain.

More than that, with 13 nominations overall, the production is at worst assured to walk home as a winner in a handful of categories. Recipients will likely give speeches recognizing and thanking the Trans community, and I wouldn't be shocked if some even went further than that, slamming the Trump administration by name for its repressive, insensitive, downright evil, fascistic machinations.

I don't know. I think Emilia Pérez is a bad movie for a multitude of reasons, most of which have little to do with the Trans pieces of its narrative. But it is those culturally sensitive aspects everyone is going to be talking about for the next few weeks as we inch closer to the Academy Awards ceremony on March 2, and it will be those elements that will continue to lead the conversation far into the foreseeable future whether the film wins a single Oscar or not. While those potential upsides are noteworthy, I still find all this nonetheless exhausting.