Fin: Thoughts on the Karla Sofia Gascon debacle

The NFL Honors, Donald Trump vs. CBS, 'Dinner in America,' and other things in this week's notes column.

A week ago, I wrote in this space about how I found it a bit unsavory that awards season had turned into a series of smear campaigns and opposition research dumps, which seemed geared towards surfacing old tweets and political stances and other things having little to do with the nominated movies themselves. It was an odd thing to gain salience, especially at a time when what used to be called “cancel culture” seems to have lost a great deal of steam.

But then came Karla Sofia Gascon, who turned out to have years of old social media posts containing everything from racism to anti-Muslim sentiment to insults of the Oscars themselves. Gascon didn’t exactly nail the apology either, surfacing repeatedly and going back and forth between apologizing and alleging a smear campaign. By the end of the week, she and Netflix were no longer speaking.

A few thoughts on this:

• As I’ve mentioned quite a few times, I’m solidly anti-Emilia Perez, and it’s the one Best Picture nominee this year that I actually detested. Although I probably would have preferred the film fall out of favor on its own merits, rather than due to an external controversy.

• This is an episode that will be taught in PR school (at least, it would if such things existed.) I do not believe, as some do, that no one should ever apologize for anything — the whole point of apologizing, after all, is that you’re sincere about ti — but I think the key is more to apologize once, be sincere and not defensive, and then get it over with.

• I’ve gotten to know Netflix’s awards publicity team fairly well over the last couple of years; I certainly don’t envy them right now.

• That said, while Gascon’s own Best Actress nomination is pretty dead in the water, I don’t believe the film’s Oscar chances are as doomed as they might look. Green Book’s Tony Vallelonga had some pretty anti-Muslim tweets back in 2019 while repping a movie he wrote that was specifically about how his dad learned not to be racist. The film went on to win Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Don’t underestimate the power of backlash.

• After those tweets… I think MAGA has a new favorite trans person. Sorry, Caitlyn Jenner, your time is over.

• Also, the Critics Choice Awards are tonight on E! Because the awards were postponed twice due to the Los Angeles fires, the voting was completed weeks ago, entirely before the Gascon controversy started. Meaning that she could win. That would be awkward (she’s not coming), although quite as awkward as Will Smith winning an Oscar 30 minutes after The Slap.

  

  Speaking of awards shows…

Last night, the NFL Honors were held in New Orleans. It’s a very strange ritual, held each year a few nights before the Super Bowl, where the NFL announced who won MVP, Coach of the Year, Rookie of the Year, and other such awards while also unveiling the latest class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The NFL Honors are structured exactly like the Oscars: There’s a celebrity host (Snoop Dogg, this time), there are presenters, there are dance numbers, everyone puts on their best fashions, and this year they even did the Oscars’ “Fab Five” thing to announce the MVP nominees. They even did an Oscar-style death montage.

The ESPYs are a similar concept, applied across all of sports. The big difference is… because it’s about the NFL, the participants are about 90 percent male, aside from the occasional host and presenter, and wives and girlfriends of the athletes (Bill Belichick’s child bride included). We also quickly learn, at this kind of event, which athletes are good at talking and have future media careers to look forward to and which ones don’t.