A senior executive at Netflix has responded for the first time to the controversy that has hobbled the chances of Emilia Pérez, its key Oscars contender this year.

Speaking to Matthew Belloni on The Town podcast, Netflix’s chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, addressed the backlash to star Karla Sofía Gascón’s resurfaced history of offensive social media posts, which is casting a pall over the record-breaking 13 Oscar nominations clocked up by Jacques Audiard’s musical.

“I think it’s really a bummer for the 100 incredibly talented people who made an amazing movie,” Bajaria said. “And if you look at the nominations, and all of this awards love that it’s received, I think it’s such a bummer that it distracted from that.

“It really has kind of taken the conversation in a different way [from] this incredible movie that Jacques Audiard – who is an incredible director – has made. It really is a bummer for a lot of the people, like [co-stars] Zoe [Saldaña] and Selena [Gomez]. And our awards team did an incredible campaign for that movie.”

Netflix and Gascón’s personal representatives have been criticised for not spotting their client’s problematic tweets earlier. Bajaria said the episode would probably mean a change in internal policy, commenting: “I do think it is raising questions for a lot of people about re-evaluating that process.”

Yet she also expressed concern about the logistics of rolling out such a process. “I think you also have to [ask]: are we going to actually look at the personal social media of tens of thousands of people, every single day around the world, [given the] amount of original film and TV and co-prods that we make and license? It raises a lot of questions about what that should look like.”

Senior publicists expressed concern to the Guardian last week about internal handling of the affair, with some suggesting the company had abandoned its duty of care to a relative industry newcomer.

They also suggested that the likely repercussions of the slip would be causing considerable headaches for Netflix staff.

“If Netflix boss Ted Sarandos,” said Variety executive editor Steven Gaydos, “who’s spent millions campaigning for awards for the film, finds out this social media history was known, and not surfaced to him by anyone on his team … watch this space.”

The stars of the film have also spoken out over the past week, with Gomez telling the Santa Barbara film festival that while “some of the magic has disappeared”, she continues to be proud of the film.

That sentiment was echoed by Bajaria, who said Netflix stood by its decision to acquire the film after its rapturous reception at Cannes last May. “If you asked me today, everything that I know, we would still buy the movie today,” she said. “That movie is incredible and it’s creative and it’s bold. That’s what you want. You want to take those big swings.”

Gascón has repeatedly apologised for posts on her X account, which she has now deactivated. After an emotional hour-long interview on Spanish TV last weekend, the star has now said she will withdraw from the media to try to allow the film to speak for itself.

Variety later reported that Netflix is no longer covering expenses for Gascón’s travel to awards shows; her Spanish publishers have also dropped her. On Thursday it was confirmed that she will not be attending this Sunday’s Bafta awards ceremony in London.