So, Uh, How Is Conan Going to Joke About Karla Sofía Gascón at the Oscars?

Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón has put 97th Academy Awards host Conan O’Brien in a tough spot — and he was probably so excited to sing the hit song “Penis to Vagina.”

When Emilia Pérez opened up Oscars season with a staggering 13 nominations — the most ever for a foreign language film — the Netflix-distributed, Spanish-language, French-directed musical crime thriller was already the center of a few controversies regarding its cast. Despite taking place mostly in Mexico with a mostly Mexican cast of characters, director Jacques Audiard only cast one actual Mexican national in Emilia Pérez, incensing Spanish-speakers south of the border who had to suffer through Selena Gomez’ blatantly un-fluent accent. 

Then, when Twitter investigators revealed that Gascón, the first transgender woman ever to earn a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, has long been, let’s just say, “Hitler-friendly,” the historically strong Oscar campaign for Emilia Pérez basically retreated into its Berlin bunker.

With all the headlines, the explosive drama and the sensitive subject matter surrounding the would-be Oscars frontrunner’s leading lady, O’Brien is probably looking at Chris Rock right now and thinking, “He got off easy.”

During a recent appearance on Good Morning America, O’Brien clarified that he isn’t about to approach hosting Hollywood’s biggest night barely a few weeks after Hollywood nearly burned down by roasting his exclusively A-list audience in the style of a Golden Globes master of ceremonies. While the internet adored Nikki Glaser's takedown of everything in the entertainment business from Timothée Chalamet to celebrity tequila brands last month, she had the benefit of performing at a show known for its comparatively meaner sense of humor — as well as performing three days before the wildfires started.

“L.A. has just been through this traumatic experience. There’s a lot that’s happening nationally that people are very tense about,” O’Brien explained of his unique challenges in hosting this year’s Oscars, admitting of his ever-fluid trove of topical material, “It changes day-to-day. So my job right now with my writers is to create possibilities. We’re going to have to get very close to the actual airdate to figure out what works (and) what doesn’t work.”

But, I mean, now that even Netflix has dropped the Oscar-nominated, ceiling-shattering actress who played Emilia Pérez from their Emilia Pérez campaign, the Oscars host just has to talk about the biggest news story leading up to this year’s ceremony. Even if O’Brien is going to go easy on these traumatized millionaires, he can’t just go three and a half hours without addressing the transgender, history-making, Nazi-sympathizing elephant in the room.

The production team for the Academy Awards is going to go all out to subtly cut Gascón’s anti-Semitic ass out of the broadcast, and the Oscars are even doing away with the popular “Fab 5” format for picturing each nominee in the acting categories onstage before naming a winner in a blatant attempt to limit her screen time. Nevertheless, there’s nothing Conan or anyone at the Oscars can do to keep Gascón out of the headlines, win or almost-definitely-lose, and, if the host doesn’t make a single jab at Gascón’s checkered Twitter feed, all the internet will talk about come Monday, March 3rd will be about how O’Brien wimped out from joking about what’s on everybody’s mind.

O’Brien would be wise to make one, singular, throwaway joke about Gascón’s fascist-friendliness in the opening monologue and rip the band-aid off early. God knows Emilia Pérez has plenty of bandages left after “La Vaginoplastia.”