Reflexión muy interesante de un usuario de Reddit (Parte 1):
A long take on Karla Sofía Gascón and why I believe she was wronged
I’m not going into all the reasons for “Emilia Pérez” being panned by many minority groups that were ignored by the Netflix machine for the sake of a successful awards run – or how Karla herself contributed to this goal, until she didn't.
Instead, I’ll be going into the moral destruction this Spanish trans woman was subjected to while everybody rejoiced (as if her downfall meant the destruction of that awful movie as well). I’m speaking about this now because, after the controversy has cooled off and the Oscar winners were chosen, a lot of people are turning her experience into a humorous bid (“I’ll miss this chaotic queen next year” etc).
So, by now, everybody knows about her ‘uncovered’ tweets. But honestly, I doubt those were interpreted with the benefit of the doubt and/or the proper cultural nuance. As in:
Twitter has always been the ideal online outlet for rage venting, and the character limits don’t allow for in-depth discussions.
Old tweets that resurface hardly grasp the time, place and context when they were made: at the heat of the moment of Kamala Harris losing to Donald Trump, many Americans said they wouldn’t be donating to Florida when the next hurricane hits, and even if the tweet comes with a humorous gif to make sure it was all a joke, this could be seen on a different light a couple of years later, when emotions are not as raw and this person happened to become world-famous.
Old tweets that were made by someone in a foreign country and on a different language are even harder to comprehend and interpret – you don’t have the reference and context.
Old tweets posted by a niche public figure that wasn’t media trained to endure the scrutiny of the worldwide exposure that often comes when one ‘makes it’ in Hollywood bear a different weight.
And speaking of public figures… Some might have terribly offensive worldviews and stick by their indefensible statements - sometimes it can even contribute to their star quality. Some are indeed provocateurs, more of a Fran Lebowitz than a Golden Age America’s Sweetheart. Some public figures with a niche following might feel more inclined to share whatever is on their mind.
Some of the tweets from Karla were indeed controversial or insensitive at the very least. Yet they were also interpreted by people expecting the worst. So I went back to the ‘worst’ ones…
In a post commenting on photos showing genderfluid and pansexual pop singer Miley Cyrus kissing reality TV personality Kaitlynn Carter, Gascón wrote, “evil, horrible, unnatural, lesbian perversion, they are going to hell.” – why wouldn’t this be perceived as the obvious ironic comment that it is? Seriously? And then:
“I’m Sorry, Is it just my impression or [are] there more muslims in Spain? 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. Next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.”
“Islam is marvelous, without any machismo. Women are respected, and when they are so respected they are left with a little squared hole on their faces for their eyes to be visible and their mouths, but only if she behaves ... How DEEPLY DISGUSTING OF HUMANITY.”
A trans woman suddenly being more aware of how women are expected to behave under a particular belief system could be more pressed to speak out against religion fundamentalism, which is NOT the same as speaking out against religious freedom, which is also NOT the same as consciously feeding on the prejudices against Muslims in the post-9/11 world – though this can be a side effect.
The perception of “more muslims in Spain”, for instance, can be related to her transition journey (becoming more attentive of how other women navigate the world), and the comment of “instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic”, which was interpreted as xenophobic, can be the same as someone saying “next year all kids will have to pray eating lunch in school” if you’re pressed by the perception of a conservative group’s beliefs rising in your community.
‘Religious discrimination’ can be used to describe a baker who refuses to make a wedding cake for a gay couple to someone tweeting from raw emotions after a gay kid was beaten to death by his evangelical father. Seeing how comfortable the mainstream media was to portray Karla as religiously intolerant was indeed troubling. Moving on to another tweet…
“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 [Women’s March]. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”
This tweet was seen as another example of racial discrimination and xenophobia. It could be. It could also be a case of calling out the Oscars for what can be perceived as a ‘superficial’ attempt of embracing diversity and inclusion while not pushing for meaningful structural changes.
