A picture of Emily in Paris. (courtesy Emilyinparis)
Strong points
- ‘Emily In Paris’ is streaming on Netflix
- ‘Emily In Paris’ features Lilly Collins in the lead role
- Darren Star created the show
Paris:
Love it, hate it or love it hate: the hit Netflix series Emily in Paris, which perpetuates long-standing fantasies about the City of Light involving berets and French pleasers, leaves no one indifferent. After An American in Paris, Funny Face, Moulin Rouge or Amelie, the rosy and romanticized vision of Paris – with Instagram a newcomer – is found again in all its glory in one of the most watched series of the moment. Many French critics have castigated the 10-episode series, tired of seeing Parisians portrayed as suspicious janitors, hostile bakers or waiters, or snobby, lazy and / or flirty colleagues.
The American heroine, meanwhile, never seems to take the subway and lives in an attic room once supposed to be used for maids that is implausibly tall, above an equally implausible handsome neighbor. It’s a sugar-coated reality that irritates Lindsey Tramuta, an American writer who has lived in Paris for 15 years.
Tramuta wrote The new Paris and The New Parisian in which she tries to show that there is much more to the city than old world breweries and corner cafes.
‘Instagram filtered playground ‘
“It’s 2020 and we’re still recycling old cards,” she said, pointing to an economic and social reality that is being overlooked in a city that has seen jihadist attacks, the Yellow Vest protest movement and mass strikes. “This is not a series of harmless clichés,” she adds. “When Paris is portrayed this way over and over again, for generations, it contributes to a problematic long-term understanding of the place itself.”
One of these issues is the so-called Paris Syndrome, which has been called the acute disappointment some tourists experience when they arrive in the capital and see it as it is. For Tramuta, the rose-tinted portrait “is an example of how Paris is exploited by film companies, luxury brands, writers, it makes the city look like a filtered playground on Instagram”.
Also criticized for having amplified the Franco-American culture shock, Emily in Paris has nonetheless managed to recycle the decades-old clichés and Netflix is quite comfortable with that. “If Emily had come to your city and not ‘to Paris’, what would be the big shots of the show?” He joked on Twitter.
“Take Emily to Marseille = it’s still sunny, the old port smells of sardines and Jul wanders the streets,” he added, referring to a rapper born in the city in the south of France. For Agnès Poirier, the author of Left Bank, a book on the intellectual and cultural life of post-war Paris, “clichés all have an element of truth or they would not be clichés.
“Plus the clichés die hard and compared to American cities, yes Paris looks and feels romantic and the French have a different and more tolerant attitude towards extramarital affairs and marriage.”
‘Silly and funny’
She adds: “Paris and Parisians fascinate for what are now, alas, purely historical reasons”, referring to the books or films that have created the image of “the city of love”, of unbridled sexuality or good living. Ines de la Fressange, fashion designer and co-author of the lifestyle bestseller The Parisian says it all could be a dream Paris, but with “a little bit of truth in it” nonetheless.
“We often forget that Americans see Paris as a type of Disneyland – Emily takes a selfie with a pain au chocolat,” says the former model. “But in New York, we’re also in awe of the Empire State Building.” At the moment, Paris suffers from a lack of tourists. If the clichés about gastronomy, elegance and beauty make you want to come here, that’s not a problem. “
And the series, created by Darren Star who also directed Sex and the city, sparked a deluge of tweets from strangers saying they want to live in Paris after watching the series.
“It’s a silly, funny romantic comedy that many foreigners can relate to,” says Lane Nieset, an American freelance travel and food journalist who has lived in Paris for almost two years. “For Americans, the French still represent the epitome of class and sophistication. And at a time of the coronavirus pandemic when” they cannot travel, it makes them dream, it is an escape “.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
