Editor’s Note: This article includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.

This review contains spoilers. 

The 97th Academy Awards — which took place last Sunday — were surprising in just about every aspect: Adrian Brody delivered a historically bad speech that left the internet enraged, independent films “Anora” and “The Brutalist” won big (the former snagged five of the six Oscars it was nominated for, including Best Picture) and Colman Domingo stunned in a dynamic red suit that made everyone else pale in comparison. The night was thoroughly entertaining, and as a film buff and musical lover, this specific Oscars grabbed my attention.

If I’m being completely honest, I mainly watched these Oscars because I wanted to see if “Emilia Pérez” would win big, as it did at the Golden Globes. If you somehow haven’t heard of the absurd French film by now, a synopsis: Manitas, a notorious cartel boss, approaches Rita, an underappreciated lawyer, with an unorthodox request. Manitas wants to retire and secretly undergo gender reassignment surgery. If that sounds crazy, you might be surprised to hear that that is one of five plots that “Emilia Pérez” attempts to tackle, with each unfolding worse than the previous one. 

Ridiculous songs like “La Vaginoplastia” have gone viral on TikTok for their deeply unserious and, frankly, bad lyrics. The aforementioned song features lines like “Hello, very nice to meet you / I’d like to know about sex change operation” and “Man to woman or woman to man? / Man to woman / From penis to vagina.” No, this film was not advertised as a satire.

So, imagine my surprise when “La Vaginoplastia” wasn’t even in the bottom half of the two-hour film’s soundtrack — sonically, at least. Other songs like “El Encuentro” just sounded like whispering over a slight drum beat, and ones like “Lady” were plain offensive, reinforcing the harmful sentiment that trans people must hate themselves to “prove” they’re not lying about their identity. I went into the night expecting “Emilia Pérez” to win more than the two awards it received. However, after watching the film for the first time the night before, I believed the possibility of it winning anything for its music was out of the question.

This made the announcement for the winner of Best Original Song even more shocking — somehow, “El Mal,” the rap song where Rita, played by Best Supporting Actress winner Zoe Saldaña, calls out the hypocrisy of the Mexican officials and criminals at Emilia’s banquet, won the category. I’ll give its writers, Camille and Clément Ducol, this: compared to the other songs in the musical, this one did have something to say. The political message definitely has real-world implications, and I can see the purpose of the song within the musical. “El Mal” reinforces the fact that Rita, despite working alongside Emilia, has not been fully morally corrupted. Of course, this message is lost about as quickly as it arrives, as Rita, seemingly without pause, continues to work with Emilia, abandoning the legal work she supposedly cared so much about.

And sure, the song is catchy. In between the shocked laughs coming from my friends with which I watched the film, my foot tapped a few times. Standing alone, I suppose the song isn’t terrible.

But that doesn’t mean it’s good. It certainly does not mean it’s Oscars good. Nominated alongside “El Mal” were “The Journey” from “The Six Triple Eight,” “Like a Bird” from “Sing Sing,” “Never Too Late” from “Elton John: Never Too Late” and “Mi Camino,” which is also from “Emilia Pérez” and a song about which I have very little good to say. 

Aside from my personal feelings about the winner, this win was monumental for a few reasons: first, with “The Journey” losing the category, Diane Warren extended her brutal Oscars losing streak, losing 16 straight. In an interview shortly before the awards show, Warren said that this song, sung beautifully by H.E.R., was her most deserving single yet. Still, it wasn’t enough for the academy. 

This win also sets a dangerous precedent for Hollywood since artificial intelligence was used to produce “El Mal.” According to Cyril Holtz, the film’s sound mixer, “Emilia Pérez” utilized voice cloning to increase the vocal range of Karla Sofía Gascón, the incredibly controversial actress who played Emilia. 

This is troubling for a few reasons, the first being that Gascón still doesn’t sound good, especially in “El Mal.” In the scene, during Rita’s rap about the corruption that plagues Mexico’s highest offices, Pérez delivers an impassioned speech — and the high notes she needed AI to achieve still leave a lot to be desired. The portions that are AI-enhanced sound weirdly muffled, and they are incredibly out of place in what could have otherwise been a decent (?) song.

What does this win mean for actors who actually can sing? Or the vocal coaches who dedicate their lives to ensure that actors like Gascón can play blockbuster roles even if they didn’t get their start on Broadway? What does it mean for music, film and creatives in general that pieces relying on AI to sound the way they do are winning awards for how they sound? Should the rest of the industry be concerned? If anything good can come out of “El Mal” winning Best Original Song, it’s that the outrage already ensuing may discourage the academy from recognizing AI-enhanced material in the future.

I think the unbearably embarrassing, impromptu-singing-filled acceptance speech for “El Mal” sums everything up pretty well. Genuinely, is this a fever dream? Is “Emilia Pérez” a social experiment? Oscars, what are we doing?