If you haven’t watched the show, you’ve heard about the show. Love it or hate it, you likely feel one way or the other about it, there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground.
The show is light and fluffy and everything that one could want for an escapist show. You can live vicariously through Emily’s single and ready-to-mingle dating misadventures in a city that everyone views through rose colored glasses. Everyone who doesn’t live there, that is.
The show is, at it’s core, a romantic comedy set in the city of love. And that’s what compels viewers everywhere to keep watching it, despite their ambivalent feelings.
On the other hand… well, on the other hand.
Before I get into that, why do I feel like taking the time to write about a show on which I clearly have mixed feelings?
Here’s why: Because this show gives us insight into the lives of expatriates (those who leave their passport country to live in another country).
Living in another country is not the same as visiting another country (more on that in a future post).
There are lots of cultural adjustment issues here that I think are worth talking about. This isn’t as much about Emily as it is a discussion of culture and cultural adaptation, a topic I’m passionate about.
I wish that I could write this humorously, like this article from The Irish Times, which happens to be the best article I’ve ever read on the show and is absolutely hysterical! Three words: tongue in cheek.
This post is long and a lot more academic in some ways than my normal posts on the blog, especially as I discuss the cultural issues, so I understand if it’s not your cup of tea. I’m grateful if you stick around to read it anyway!
If you’re just here for a discussion of the fashion, skip down to the last section.
Now for the deep dive
I’ve lived in Paris for 2 years now and this absolutely does not make me an expert on Paris, France or its people. I understand them better than I did before I moved here, but I’m certainly not an expert, and I take issue with anyone who has watched the show who claims to be an expert on Paris because of it.
Newsflash: Visiting Paris for a week or two and watching Emily in Paris does not make you an expert on French culture.
I’m saying this so you know I’m approaching this with humility, curiosity, and using the lens of my experience of not only living abroad in France but in multiple countries.
I’m using this as a case study in understanding how Americans approach cultural learning and personal growth.
This is ultimately a post mortem of an American’s behavior while living abroad so that we can better understand our own behavior towards others who are different from us, whether or not you live abroad or the place you call home.
Disclaimer: Keep in mind that this is just a fictional show. Its a fantasy and an escape. Keep a sense of humor as you watch and don’t take it too seriously! It’s a silly show, of which the plot can be summarized like this: it’s about a girl and a boy in Paris.
If you’re like me and you can’t help but do a deep dive, proceed at your own risk. Consider yourself warned!
PROS
Its beautifully filmed
The producers on this show really made Paris come alive! It’s a literal dream of Paris and she is like a character on the show.
The cinematography and filmography are absolutely beautifully done.
It makes Paris look like an eternal summer, like it’s always that one perfect day in June where it’s not humid yet, warm enough to go outside without a sweater but cool enough not to be sweating when you’re running to catch the metro. The sun is always shining and it never rains. It’s clean, graffiti free, and the trash collectors never go on strike.
The aerial views alone are enough reason to watch the show!
Its fun to watch
I’ve heard many a person moan that they hate the show yet continue tuning in. There’s just something about it that compels people to watch it.
Maybe it’s that somehow deep down we all wish we had a little taste of Emily’s perfectly “first-world ” tragic life, being sent to Paris on the company’s dime with an inexplicable amount of luggage and a magical wardrobe storage facility not seen in her apartment.
Maybe it’s for the love of Paris.
Maybe it’s for the hot actors. Okay, I KNOW it’s for the hot actors.
It seems to draw people in despite its shortcomings and the fact that it has a second season on Netflix’s top ten list, which says a lot about its power to capitalize on people’s hidden longings for a story in which to get lost.
CONS
The show does not reflect an ounce of reality
Okay, maybe it reflects about an ounce (that’s 28 grams for you metric measuring folks). It presents a fantastical view of life in Paris and does not reflect the gritty reality of daily life.
One reason I think some people feel irritated or offended by the show is because it rubs the fantasy of what we thought living in Paris was going to be in our jaded-from-living-in-France faces.
Most of us arrived in Paris bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take our Manolos to the cobblestoned streets in search of an adventure, just like Emily. Unlike Emily, we twisted our ankles the first time we attempted to walk to lunch at La Maison Rose in Montmartre down the ancient cobblestone hills (practically a true story-I almost twisted my ankle in heels in Montmartre).
Frankly, the show feels de-validating to a foreigner living in Paris, as if a less than perfect experience here just can’t be right, just can’t be how Paris actually is. No one wants to hear about one’s struggles of adjusting to life here to be honest.
Now before you say with a dose of heavy sarcasm and a dollop of an eye roll, “oh poor you, living in Paris, must be so hard” and play me a tiny violin, I want to clarify that’s not what I’m saying.
I’m not portraying myself as a victim of some bad days, nor am I whining about life. But neither am I going to sugar coat it and say every single day here is wonderful and perfect.
There are some pretty big challenges when moving to any foregin country and France is no exception. The show doesn’t portray any of that (would anyone believe it if they did??).
How about Emily overcoming the challenge of getting her visa renewed? Or navigating her way on a metro during rush hour? Or trying to find an English speaking dentist?
The show did capture some of the emotional impact of moving to another country in a small way.
For example, when Emily goes to Mindy’s party (in season 1) and she’s one of the only English speakers, the viewer can really see the isolation and the displacement that she feels.
It captured the emotion of that moment, the loneliness, the homesickness, the realization that you are surrounded by people and yet completely alone.
Those feelings are so relatable to someone who has moved abroad; indeed if you’ve moved anywhere away from home I’m sure you can relate to those feelings.
They grow fewer and farther between the longer you stay in place, but they are especially strong when you first relocate, especially to a place where you don’t speak the language (Why? WHY doesn’t Emily learn any French at all???).
I appreciate that the show captured some of these new adjustment feelings.
Emily is Super Judgy
One thing that bothers me about Emily is that she makes several moral judgment calls about human cultural convention.
Now, I don’t want to discuss deeply moral issues here; I am talking about human conventions that govern societal norms and behavior.
I’m talking about differences in culture that are neither ethically right nor wrong, they’re simply just different.
For example when Emily is shown to her new apartment, she realizes that the floors of the building start to be counted on the next floor up: instead of the ground floor being floor 1 (as is done in the US), the ground floor is counted as Floor 0, the next floor up is Floor 1, and so on. Several times she says things like, “Isn’t that so weird?”, “Why do you [people] do that?”, “I don’t understand [why its done this way]”.
What she’s really doing is judging the cultural norms of France through the lens of her American cultural perspective.
Who is she to say whether that is good or bad, right or wrong? It’s simply just different.
This is something that happens when you move to a different place, live in a culture different from your own: you can get stuck in a negative mindset of judgment on that culture.
You need to move past that in order to get to cultural adaptation and balance.
This is a natural part of the cultural adjustment process and it happens to everyone, but it’s important to be aware of this and move through it rather than stay stuck in a negative view of the place you are living.
The characters in the show are caricatured, even Emily
As the show is a romantic comedy, it presents things in a light and funny way but sometimes it takes it a bit too far, especially in the portrayal of the French characters.
They are presented with some of the negative stereotypes Americans generally hold of the French.
Conversely, Emily is everything the French generally despise about Americans (not all French of course): the lack of French language, bright, bubbly, outgoing, optimistic, oblivious and obvious about it all.
The Fashion is Way Off
Last but not least, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, let’s talk about the FASHION!
Now it’s my turn to get judgy.
In general, the fashion presented in the show is completely off and not realistic at all.
It’s like the outfit designers visited Paris once for spring fashion week and decided all their outfits based on the haute couture that season (Season 2, Episode 1: Julien in a fuschia suit. Please! You’d never in a million years see that on the streets of Paris if it wasn’t specifically for a fashion week show. If you see someone wearing something like that then they are not French).
Or did they base the entire wardrobe on what they packed for their Parisian holiday that one summer during university?
I think they forgot that people actually LIVE in Paris and dress practically for the weather.
Speaking of weather, is it always summer for Emily in Paris?
The wardrobe is completely impractical for the weather.
Where are the overcast days that necessitate a sweater even in June?
Or the rain that means you don’t want to wear nice leather heels out and about? Or the change of seasons (just how long has Emily been in Paris anyway, feels like forever!)?
And how about the commute from the apartment to metro to bus to walking to the office, navigating stairs and cobblestones?
People don’t wear high heels on a daily basis because you need comfort for that commute! I see ladies changing their shoes at bus stops and metro stations all the time. They wear a comfortable pair for walking to and from the office but change just before work or right when they leave.
Emily is a really experimental, eccentric, bold dresser and this is used as a medium to show just how much of an outsider she is in Paris and how different she is from the French.
As a fashion lover I appreciate the use of this tool to illustrate the story, but the fashion is just not for me.
The only exception to this is Sylvie, who dresses like some ladies of a certain age in Paris, so I’m told.
I haven’t seen this myself but an American friend who works for a French company confirms this to be true. If you’re as powerful as Sylvie and you want to dress like she does, more power to you I say! (Have you read this brilliant article praising Sylvie as the real hero of the show?)
BE CURIOUS
While the show is light and fluffy on the surface, there are deeper cultural issues to examine.
As an American living in Paris, it brought up lots of feelings for me and caused me to examine my own cultural biases.
I think that’s something we all can take from the show, whether you are American or French, whether or not you live abroad, wherever you live.
Why do we judge other cultural conventions as right or wrong?
How do we respond to cultural adjustment stress?
Are we taking the time and effort to be curious about ourselves and others as we navigate the world?
These are important questions that we should ask ourselves as we carry on with our lives, especially as the world is increasingly more accessible.
For Emily, la vie est belle, life is beautiful.
For Americans, Paris is la vie est rose. It sounds like accordion music, tastes like pain au chocolat, looks like a sparkly pink sunset, and feels like a summer’s day.
Would the French have it any other way?