With the release of the trailer for Emily in Paris’s second season (2021), I want to reflect on the first season, which certainly caused much controversy. The Darren Star Production is supposed to be a twist on Sex and the City (1998-2004), with an all-American girl moving to Paris for work. The idea sounds fun, the execution was bad.
Let’s talk about Stereotypes
The stereotyping of French people in Series One was outrageous: unfaithful, lazy, perverted, and functioning alcoholics French people everywhere. The cultural clashes could have been explored so much more effectively. It could have been a real insight into what life as an 'ex-pat' is like, and the difficulties of culture shock and having to adapt. Instead, Emily in Paris did absolutely none of that. It felt very much like the American producers were pushing an agenda - that America was still the greatest, and that French people are just a bit weird.
A whole lot of America and not enough Paris.
The programme is SO American, from Emily's loud, in-your-face fashion, and her can-do attitude towards life can at times be sickly. It seems the only thing Parisian about this programme is the setting. They’ve tried to make a knock-off Sex and the City, with a, dare I say it, knock-off Carrie, just set in Paris.
For a TV show that is supposed to be about an American living in Paris, there's a whole lot of America and not enough Paris. I can’t help but wonder…. is this a part of the US's soft power to assert cultural dominance? After all, it is produced by Netflix, an American streaming platform used across the globe. Is this an attempt at homogenizing culture to fit the American ideals?
The American Gaze
The whole point of creating cross-cultural products, like the idea behind Emily in Paris, is to explore world views, but all we saw was America's view of France - it is obvious how neither of the writers is French. It is a misrepresentation of a nation as we see the protagonist slowly force her American customs onto the people around her, rather than adapting to the French culture - she doesn't speak French, she forces everyone around her to speak English to her (magically everyone she encounters manages to speak perfect English!)
It's been described as “anti-French propaganda” endorsing American Exceptionalism (Trapp, 2020). The French characters are consistently portrayed as lazy, who don't work hard enough, whilst Emily's 'can-do' American capitalist attitude, where she lives to work, is presented as the desired way to behave. Watch the clip below til 2:53 for proof.
Emily “operates within an American entitlement that deems her too unbothered to truly learn the language, to accept criticism or to listen to any advice at all" (Trapp, 2020).
This is evidenced in a painful scene where Emily is so convinced that her steak is 'not cooked' and refuses to accept that a fillet mignon is not typically served 'well-done' in France, and badgers the poor waiter, using the classic American customer service tagline - “the customer is always right”.
Emily: A mouthpiece to promote American capitalism?
It seems that Emily is a pawn for promoting Neoliberalism. She constantly talks about how much she loves her job, and brings it up at any possible time, even at inappropriate times vis-à-vis when she tries to conduct a business meeting at Camille's family dinner. This could have so easily been made into a joke where we poke fun at Emily’s inability to switch off from work. Yet, Emily is portrayed as one to aspire to. In the same article, Trapp states:
"By playing into central interests of capitalism — to convince the laborer to value their worth by production and to be emotionally invested in their production — “Emily in Paris” creates an ethic in which to find joy and fulfillment in labor is deemed the moral be-all and end-all."(Trapp, 2020)
I feel like this perfectly sums up what I am trying to argue in this post. It makes the argument so black and white, and makes "a capitalist argument a moral argument" (Trapp, 2020), that America is inherently better than France and this is a message that this show is sending to its global audience, as a Film reviewer on Youtube put it:
"it's not a love letter to French culture, it's an American vanity project" (Friendly Space Ninja, 2021)
What next? Can they learn from this?
In interviews since the release of the first series, Lily Collins herself has commented that in the next season they would like the take on board the critiques and make the show more inclusive and representative of Parisian life (Collins, 2021 cited in Radloff, 2021), addressing issues of diversity and stereotyping that was raised during the Golden Globes Nomination scandal, exposing a wider racism issue in the TV industry (Copaken, 2021).
Once the second season is released, I will come back and write another post giving my thoughts. I’m hoping they will learn from their mistakes.
Bibliography
Copaken, D. 2021. I'm a writer on Emily in Paris. I May Destroy you deserved a Golden Globe Nomination. [Online] The Guardian 3 Feb. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/feb/03/emily-in-paris-writer-on-i-may-destroy-you-snub-golden-globes [Accessed 6 January 2022].
Friendly Space Ninja. 2021. Emily in Paris: Romanticizing Ignorance. [Youtube Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTLIIik_o2k [Accessed 5 January 2022].
Radloff, J. 2021. The New Emily. [Online]. Glamour December 2. Available at:https://www.glamour.com/story/emily-in-paris-season-2-cover-story [Accessed 6 January 2022]
Spark, A. (1996) ‘Wrestling with America + British popular culture, television and Americanization: Media, national images, and the global-village’, Journal of popular culture, 29(4), pp. 83–98. Available at: 10.1111/j.0022-3840.1996.83984987.x [Accessed 8 January 2022]
Trapp, V. 2022. 'Emily in Paris' is a Cog in the Machine of Capitalism. [Online] The Stanford Daily 25 October. Available at: https://stanforddaily.com/2020/10/25/emily-in-paris-is-a-cog-in-the-machine-of-capitalism/ [Accessed 5 January 2022].
Visual Bibliography
Beautiful Scene Clips. 2020. Emily in Paris (2020) Episode 1 Culture Conflict Scene + Trailer. [Youtube Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_nkMr3ZvwU. [Accessed 8 January 2022].
Netflix. 2020. Emily in Paris | Official Trailer | Netflix. [Youtube Video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lptctjAT-Mk. [Accessed 8 January 2022].
USA Jacket. No date. Emily in Paris Outfits. Available at: https://www.usajacket.com/blog/emily-in-paris-outfits/ [Accessed 5 January 2022].
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