This week, the Oscars race got a January Surprise.

With one month to go, Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, the Spanish star of “Emilia Perez” and the first transgender performer to ever be nominated for an Academy Award, was called out for offensive tweets from as recently as four years ago.

What were they about? What weren’t they about?

In Spanish, she suggested Islam should be banned. Apparently an equal-opportunity offender, she also hammered Catholics and called George Floyd a “drug addict swindler.” 

Tell us how you really feel, Karla.

Gascón, 52, even took aim at the Oscars. After Yuh-Jung Youn (“Minari”) and Daniel Kaluuya (“Judas and the Black Messiah”) won in 2021, the X addict couldn’t help herself. “I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M,” she blasted out.

She was a no-name back then. (OK, she still mostly is now.) But the belated backlash forced Gascón to delete her X account and sort-of apologize. She said, “I believe light will always triumph over darkness.” 

A meh culpa if there ever was one.

Well, I for one do not believe Gascón will triumph over Demi Moore, Fernanda Torres, Mikey Madison or Cynthia Erivo at the Dolby Theater next month. If she even shows up. 

This fallout has not been contained to a social-media bubble of Oscars fanatics or the LA trades. It’s made newspapers and TV all over the globe. 

Gascón’s chances of winning were always minuscule. Now, they’re kaput. That a trans actress from an indie foreign-language musical shared such controversial opinions is simply not something Hollywood can compute. 

And that’s a huge blow to “Emilia Perez,” which, with the most nominations of any film, was the Best Picture frontrunner. No longer. Gascón is synonymous with the title.    

Netflix, perhaps regretfully, has made her the face of their movie. 

At the flick’s Toronto International Film Festival party at Nobu, the streamer’s flacks walked a beaming Gascón around the room enthusiastically introducing her to the media. The pricey event was entirely about her, rather than co-stars Selena Gomez or Zoe Saldana (who still will likely win).

Then, she — not director Jacques Audiard or the producers — accepted the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

In a speech that outlets called “powerful,” Gascón had a prophetic message: “I want to say to you, raise your voice and say, ‘I am who I am, not who you want’”

She wasn’t lying.

True, “Emilia Perez” has faced other headwinds. American viewers haven’t gone gaga for the movie, which is an outré musical about a Mexican drug cartel leader who transitions into a woman. And in Mexico, ticket-buyers have been put off by the way the shot-in-France film depicts their culture.

But a shrewd awards campaign could’ve batted those criticisms away by saying “art” and “history” a bunch — and they were. US moviegoers turn up their noses at Best Picture winners all the time these days. The academy is indifferent to that.

What they’re not indifferent to is nasty award-season narratives. 

Giving Michelle Yeoh her first Oscar and celebrating the comebacks of Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan looked and felt great.

That’s why 62-year-old Moore’s Golden Globes speech last month, in which she said, “This is the first time I’ve ever won anything as an actor,” cemented her as the frontrunner for Best Actress.

Gascón’s angry old rants, on the other hand, have given the academy a solid reason not to vote for her or “Perez.” “The Brutalist” and “Anora” are on the rise.

Look, on Friday the film could still take home the Critics Choice Award, which finished voting before this bombshell dropped. And the Producers and Directors Guilds only have a few days left to pick. Wins there could boost its momentum some.

But the SAGs? Not a chance. They still have 19 days of voting to go, and the Screen Actors Guild is left of Lenin. The musical with the best odds there is “Wicked.” 

However things shake out, for the next month Netflix ain’t chill.