This has taken me a while to get to but I think it’s important to reflect and see what has been improved from the first season of Emily in Paris which was at the centre of public criticism (see my post on Season 1 here).
For the second season review, I would like to come from a different angle, in keeping with the discussion throughout my blog on class. At times Emily in Paris feels like a classless utopia, where junior marketing executives wear Chanel every day. However, there is much to unpack regarding one of the characters’ impersonations a poor ‘struggling artist’, and it doesn’t concern the protagonist, it concerns her best friend, Mindy.
Mindy
Image: Mindy from Emily in Paris
Mindy is an heiress and daughter to a Chinese billionaire entrepreneur; however, she refuses her father’s money to ‘make it on her own’ – a storyline that we have seen often in American-produced TV and film. Mindy is a sweet and funny character, providing comic relief in between Emily’s various misguided actions.
In season 2 Mindy has a strong storyline as she quits her job as an au pair and begins sleeping on Emily’s sofa. She falls for a guitarist in a busking band and asks to join as vocalist, all while hiding her secret richesse. Mindy poses as a struggling artist alongside Benoit (the love interest) who doesn’t seem to question her economic status as she continues to wear designer clothes at busking shows (see picture below). Thus, even the wardrobe styling is inconsistent with the storyline throughout the series, as she is still dressing like a billionaire’s offspring, whilst claiming she has no money.
Image Mindy and Benoit busking
I'm not rich, my father's rich
Benoit eventually finds out about Mindy’s upbringing and her billionaire father and is, understandably shocked. He feels betrayed, lied to and the viewer can empathise with this. Benoit truly is a ‘struggling artist’, trying to make ends meet whilst following his passion, contrast to Mindy who has an awful lot to fall back on (her father has bought her a house and a BMW back in China to entice her home) but has been pretending to be in the same socio-economic strata as her boyfriend.
Mindy’s defence: “I’m not rich, my father’s rich”.
There is a disconnect here between what constitutes being ‘rich’ or ‘wealthy’. Mindy doesn’t own the means of production herself; she doesn’t take any money from her father any longer (as far as we know) and she is sofa surfing at Emily’s apartment. Mindy is at that very moment financially independent, and without her job as au pair anymore, is without a stable income. This would make her seem, at that moment, a ‘struggling artist’.
Head-to-toe designer busker
However, what makes this trope so uncompelling, is the fact that Mindy still possesses all the material goods that she could have only afforded by using her father’s wealth – racks and racks of designer clothes, designer handbags, shoes, silk pyjamas with feathered cuffs? How could we possibly empathise with Mindy as a struggling artist when her luxury material goods are on display in every scene. Reviewers have rightly pointed out that if Mindy sold even just half of the designer clothes she still owns, she would be able to pay for her own apartment or to live comfortably for a while.
Thus, her impersonation of a ‘struggling artist’ aka someone suffering socio-economically, in search of work and earning little to no income is astounding when you consider the material wealth Mindy still owns. She may not have billions in the bank like her father, but she still possesses economic capital in the form of material assets, according to Bourdieu’s theory on different forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1986).
Bibliography
Bourdieu, P. 1986. The Forms of Capital. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/bourdieu-forms-capital.htm [Accessed: 1 May 2022].
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