An Opinion By Tim Estiloz
In 1993, the legendary Gloria Estefan released her exquisitely personal album entitled “Mi Tierra”, a collection of Spanish language songs that lovingly pays homage to Estefan’s Cuban roots and heritage. However, among the many memorable hit tracks on this record is a beautiful song entitled “Hablemos El Mismo Idioma” ( Let’s speak the same language ) that indeed speaks to all Latinos from diverse nations, customs and cultures.
One of the lyrics reads: “Let’s speak the same language, So only united ( we ) will succeed.
“The song is a call to Latinos worldwide to be unified, inclusive of each other and respectful of our individual diversity and our unique backgrounds – because as the title states ( We ) speak the same language. It’s a unifying message that’s easy for anyone to understand.
Unless you happen to be Mexican-born comedic actor Eugenio Derbez, whose recent publicly harsh and careless criticism of singer / actress Selena Gomez suggests he believes only those expertly fluent in the Spanish language with a pitch-perfect Mexican accent are worthy of his respect and inclusion.
Gomez currently co-stars in Netflix’ multiple Golden Globe nominated Spanish-language film “Emilia Perez” along with Zoe Saldana, Adriana Paz and Karla Sofia Gascon. In the film, Gomez plays the character of Jessi, the young wife of a notorious Mexican drug cartel leader who wishes for a new, more fulfilling life for himself. The role calls for Gomez’ character to speak Spanish for a majority of the film. For Gomez, a U.S. born Mexican-American whose primary and more fluent language most of her life has been English; tackling the role and working to perform it well in Spanish was a challenge she was eager to meet.
Last month, Gomez spoke with Entertainment Weekly’s Yolanda Machado about her enthusiasm for taking on the challenging role. “I’m very proud of who I am.” said Gomez. “I may not be fluent, but that doesn’t make me less proud or less Mexican in my eyes. I think it’s about what my last name has always meant to me. It’s my family. It’s everything that’s a part of me.”
A child of proud Mexican-American parents in Texas who named their daughter after the late iconic Tejano singing legend Selena Quintanilla; Gomez had been fluent in Spanish up until age 7. However, after her family moved to California to support her budding acting career with Disney, her fluency began to wane amid work as a young child speaking entirely in English.
To prepare for her role in “Emilia Perez”, Gomez took Spanish lessons for six months to regain and improve her fluency. At the September red-carpet premiere of “Emilia Perez” during the 62nd Annual New York Film Festival, Gomez told reporters her family, most notably her father, Ricardo Joel Gomez was proud of her progress and her role speaking Spanish in the film.
Gomez told the TV entertainment news program “Extra”, “I had coaches, yes, and we communicated every day in Spanish, but yeah, my Dad was even so proud. He was like, “You’re texting me, Mija,’ and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m texting you in Spanish.’”
Amid Gomez’ and her family’s joy at the young actress successfully working to proudly embrace her Spanish language and heritage even more – enter Eugenio Derbez.
Derbez is a Mexico-born, internationally known and popular comedic actor who began his career on Mexican television in the early 1980’s on a children’s television show entitled “En Familia con Chabelo”. Over the years, his comedic television career flourished in Mexico gaining greater notoriety and fame internationally performing in many more Spanish language sitcoms, films and projects he personally produced.
As Will Ferrell’s comedically pompous TV Anchorman Ron Burgundy might say, “In Mexico, Eugenio Derbez is kind of a big deal.”
Beginning in the early 2000’s, Derbez began making the inevitable attempt to crossover into Hollywood roles with notable success in mostly comedic roles. He has appeared ( or performed voice-overs ) in a wide variety of films produced in the U.S. such as “Dora and the Lost City of Gold”, “The Secret Life of Pets”, “The Angry Birds Movie 2” and the Oscar nominated film “Coda”; and has performed in comedies alongside notable stars such as Salma Hayek, Rob Lowe, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Garner.
Derbez has achieved great success from his work in Hollywood since arriving there from Mexico. Now living in Los Angeles, he and his family are indeed enjoying the wonderful fruits of that hard earned success.
During last September’s 62nd Annual New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, the stars of “Emilia Perez”; Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Gascon, Adriana Paz and Selena Gomez were in attendance at the festival premiere of the film receiving well-deserved accolades, applause and praise for their performances. As always, numerous members of the entertainment press were on hand lined along the red-carpet to interview the film’s four female stars, joined by a large gathering of press photographers and paparazzi. All of them jockeying to get a glamorous photo of the exquisite quartet for their publications and media outlets.
Eugenio Derbez was also in attendance at this New York premiere.
At one point, amid the photographs being taken of the film’s cast and director, Derbez joined the actors for a group photo. He can be seen smiling broadly, flanked by actresses Selena Gomez and Karla Sofia Gascon on either side with his arms in a seemingly supportive embrace around their waists. It’s a wonderful photo. 
One could justifiably assume by his smile and embraces that Derbez was lending his full support for “Emilia Perez”, the actors, the director and the performances within the film. A full two months later, Derbez would appear on the podcast “Hablando Del Cine” ( Talking About Movies ) hosted by Gaby Meza. As evidenced by a video segment of their conversation from the upcoming episode shown on TikTok recently; Derbez’ smiling glee in the previous photo with Selena Gomez had apparently turned into dour disapproval.
During the podcast segment released online, Derbez tells Meza regarding Gomez’ performance “Selena ( performance ) is indefensible. I was there ( watching the movie ) with people, and every time a scene came ( with her in it ), we looked at each other to say, ‘Wow, what is this?”
Meza, the podcast host responded by saying Gomez is a “very talented actress” and a “very good singer”. But then, Meza added in a bit of exaggerated and speculative hyperbole, “Spanish is neither her primary nor secondary language nor fifth.” It’s debatable the degree to which Spanish is Gomez’ primary language since she did speak it as a child; as well as speaking the language in “Emilia Perez” and singing primarily in Spanish on her impressive 2021 album “Revelacion”. Also, Selena Gomez isn’t trying to speak five languages as Meza’s frivolous comment also seems to suggest.
But, let’s not allow pesky little details get in the way of a juicy podcast bashing a young Latina woman.
Meza continued, “That’s why I feel she doesn’t know what she is saying. She can’t give her acting any nuance. And that is why her performance is not only unconvincing but uncomfortable.”
Derbez agreed, gleefully chiming in “I’m glad you’re saying that because I was saying, ‘I can’t believe no one is talking about it?”
Clearly self awareness of the moment by Derbez had escaped him as he continued to talk about and criticize Gomez’ performance, incredulously wondering why others had not publicly criticized Gomez’ acting and Spanish, and how instead she’s been given awards for her effort.
Gomez, along with co-stars Saldana, Sofia Gascon and Paz; the women were jointly awarded, in a unique move, the “Best Actress” prize at the Cannes Film Festival. As a group, Gomez and her fellow Latina actresses made film history by receiving the first time the prestigious Cannes award was presented to a group of women for their exceptional performance together. This prize should be even more celebrated within our global Latino community because it was awarded to a group of four Latina women portraying four STRONG Latina female characters. Indeed, a rarity for any film these days coming from Hollywood.
However, rather than celebrate this distinction and advancement for these Latina actresses and for our global Latino community; Derbez chose to arrogantly and cruelly disparage Selena Gomez’ heartfelt effort to identify with, accentuate and earnestly portray her Latina / Mexican heritage.
( Also, as of this writing, Gomez has been nominated in the Golden Globes category of “Best Supporting Actress” along with her co-star Zoe Saldana. )
Derbez concluded his podcast critique by speculating audiences don’t realize that Gomez’ acting and Spanish is, in his opinion, sub-standard and dull since some / many in the audience don’t speak the language and are instead just reading the subtitles.
“I feel like what happens is that they don’t speak Spanish”, said Derbez, “If you watch a Russian film or a German film that is subtitled in Spanish and you see someone ( speaking in the original ), you say, ‘Oh look. OK. How interesting.”
Indeed, how interesting and insightful for Derbez to assume that in all the myriad screenings of “Emilia Perez” since its production, not one native Spanish speaker was ever on set, in studio post-production or in the numerous subsequent festival screenings. To assume not one person was ever present to point out the alleged egregious acting and Spanish inadequacies in Gomez’ performance… or to enact the unique courage he is proudly displaying by nobly taking on that weighty mantle in doing so himself.
But again, to paraphrase Ron Burgundy, Eugenio Derbez is kind of a big deal.
Let’s cut to the chase here. Eugenio Derbez’ self-righteous public criticism of Selena Gomez’ performance and attempt at speaking Spanish in this role was cruel and unnecessarily harsh in the widespread way he chose to present it. He has every right to his personal opinion of her performance, and even her fluency in speaking the Spanish language. However, his egregious failure as an actor and arguably, in MY opinion, as a supportive Latino was the ill-advised and totally unprofessional public manner in which he voiced that opinion.
Let us presume Derbez and Meza’s harsh podcast critique of Selena Gomez’ performance and her alleged limited mastery in speaking Spanish has merit – hypothetically. It has been a full TWO MONTHS since Derbez shared a smiling friendly embrace with Gomez for press photographers the night of the “Emilia Perez” premiere on the red-carpet in New York, and the night that he screened the film.
Derbez could have taken a moment during the New York premiere to talk to Gomez privately to congratulate her… and also, offer some gentle encouragement for her to continue improving on her Spanish for herself and for future roles. But he did not.
Derbez could have again reached out to Gomez at the subsequent premiere of “Emilia Perez” weeks later in their shared hometown of Los Angeles to do the same. But, he did not.
Derbez could have easily reached out to Gomez personally at another of the myriad public opportunities on the press tour to offer such advice. After all, he seemed quite comfortable sharing publicity photos with her for the press in New York. Surely, a friendly bond was established. But he did not.
Derbez could have contacted Gomez directly in a phone call or reached out via text, email or carrier pigeon. Well, maybe not carrier pigeon; but their respective publicists could have easily facilitated the other three. But he did not.
Instead, Derbez waited and waited until he could no longer withstand his insufferable agony of silence over Gomez’ accent and chose to vent about her perceived idiomatic transgression on a Spanish podcast that he could safely assume she might never hear; let alone her ability to understand it. After all, he was dissing Gomez in his perfectly articulated Spanish.
Additionally, the unintended consequence of his ( and Meza’s ) harsh public criticism of Gomez reared its ugly head when the video of their podcast conversation was posted on TikTok and subsequently on Twitter and other social media. Suddenly, everyone wanted to weigh in on Selena Gomez’ performance and fluency. Since that TikTok posting of Derbez’ criticism ( and continuing, as of this writing ) a torrent of online vitriol, trolling and shaming of Gomez’ Spanish in the film, much of which is on “X” ( formerly Twitter ) and TikTok has become pervasive.
Much of it can be found via the hashtag of its originator, #EugenioDerbez.
Sadly, much of the trolling comes from other like-minded with Derbez, narrow-minded Latinos, that subscribe to his opinion about her perceived limited Spanish-speaking ability. Several of these online trolls, some of them proudly stating they are nativeborn Mexicanos, firmly stated the slanderous fallacy that Selena Gomez is not even a Latina at all.
A few went so far as to say that she’s just a “White Girl”. Well done, Mr. Derbez, well done.
This situation is tragically reminiscent of when, in 2019 – popular Mexican actor Sergio Goyri viciously disparaged first time Mexican actress Yalitza Aparicio for her Oscar nominated lead role in the globally acclaimed Alfonso Cuaron film “Roma”. In similar fashion, Goyri publicly disparaged Aparicio’s performance of her role; as well as going even further to disgustingly and vilely demean Aparicio’s indigenous Mexican heritage.
The additional unintended consequence of Derbez’ ill-thought out public criticism was present in other online social media posts from Latinos, for whom Spanish is not their most fluent language at present for any number of reasons or personal consequence. This incident prompted online posts from Latinos who stated their embarrassment and dismay at being made to feel diminished by other Latinos when they make the attempt to learn and speak Spanish.
One mother posting on the #EugenioDerbez thread of comments on “X” said her young son tries to speak Spanish with his more fluent classmates; but he’s made to feel embarrassed at his attempts because of his accent. As a result, she says, her son no longer wants to try.
This is exactly what Derbez, as an adult, has tried to do to Selena Gomez. Criticism without encouragement has adverse consequences, Mr. Derbez.
As a fellow professional actor, Derbez’ critical comments were extraordinarily ill-timed and unprofessional as a performing Screen Actors Guild colleague to Selena Gomez and the rest of the “Emilia Perez” cast.
Earlier this week marked the beginning of the all-important Hollywood awards season leading up to the Oscars ceremony in March. For Derbez to have made those comments, at this crucial time, disparaging Selena Gomez’ performance was egregiously unprofessional as a fellow actor; as ‘Emilia Perez” and its female cast are trying to find an audience and well-deserved recognition amid a highly competitive field of contenders.
No actor with any sense of decency and professional courtesy and decorum for their colleagues would so publicly disparage another actor’s work in this fashion; and most certainly not at all on the eve of this important and very competitive awards consideration time in Hollywood. A personal opinion is one thing. Voicing that opinion so publicly as to adversely impact your colleagues’ opportunities at recognition is inexcusable.
Lastly, one might ask – I might ask – who is Eugenio Derbez to feel so entitled as to publicly criticize Selena Gomez’ accent while attempting to speak Spanish in a dramatic role; especially as he works to more firmly establish himself speaking in English in an English speaking Hollywood industry? No doubt if someone were to publicly deride his heavily exaggerated accent, while speaking English in such “noteworthy and award-winning” films of his; such as “How To Be A Latin Lover” … either he, or his surrogates, would be among the first to decry such insensitivity, and perhaps even characterize it as racism.
After Derbez’ harsh criticism went public, Selena Gomez posted the following humble statement on social media. “I understand where you are coming from. I’m sorry, I did the best I could with the time I was given. ( It ) doesn’t take away from how much work and heart I put into this movie.”
To be fair, Derbez almost immediately posted an apology to Gomez online; in part saying, “I truly apologize for my careless comments. They are indefensible and go against everything I stand for. As Latinos, we should always support one another. There’s no excuse. I was wrong, and I deeply admire your career and your kind heart.”
Perhaps it’s the cynic in me, but I am of the firm belief that Derbez’ apology for his ill-advised comments was because of the profound negative publicity and backlash he received in the wake of his public arrogance and insensitivity. For me, his podcast statements were too firmly ingrained from his strongly worded opinion and perspective. He never expected Gomez to hear nor even possibly understand his statements on a Spanish-language podcast. To believe his harsh opinion took a sudden miraculous 180-degree turn in the span of 24-hours strains my ability to embrace a fantasy.
Then again, I could be wrong.
However, my Mom used to love telling me the parable about gossip and unkind words being like the feathers in a down pillow. Once those feathers are unleashed into the wind, it is impossible to retrieve them all again, and equally impossible to prevent them from touching other people – or preventing the damage, once unleashed, that they can cause.
Below is a brief video segment created for my TV media outlet, The Spiel, that shows Selena Gomez and the other actresses involved in this wonderful film, explaining the depth, effort and personal meaning involved in their effort to create this film “Emilia Perez”.
As always, both in the video, as well as in her response to Eugenio Derbez’ insensitive public remarks, Selena Gomez comports herself with dignity, grace and humility. Perhaps, Mr. Derbez could learn something from Gomez; rather than needlessly criticizing this young actress’ earnest and heartfelt effort to uplift and honor her Latina and Mexican heritage and roots.
Perhaps, just perhaps – Eugenio Derbez could learn to put into practice the deeper meaning of Gloria Estefan’s “Hablemos El Mismo Idioma”
… and uplift and support our fellow Latinos, whatever their background, their experience – or their language fluency.
Tim Estiloz is a double Emmy Award winning entertainment journalist and film critic with 20-years of professional experience.He is the entertainment reporter for the lifestyle / entertainment TV program, The Spiel. He is also the film critic for El Mundo Boston and a member of the Critics Choice Association. He also is a regular contributor to this website, Kaleidoscope Reviews.
