“Emily in Paris”, a Netflix Hit Series Teeming with French Clichés

PARIS, KOMPAS.com – Netflix’s newest series “Emily in Paris” has become a smash-hit despite causing clamor among viewers stemming from the many clichés about the French.

Love it, hate it, or love to hate it, “Emily in Paris” leaves no one indifferent although the series perpetuates long-held fantasies about the City of Light involving berets and pleasure-loving Frenchies.

After "An American in Paris," "Funny Face," "Moulin Rouge" or "Amelie", the rose-tinted, romanced vision of Paris — with Instagram a new arrival — is once again laid out in all its glory in one of the most-watched series of the moment.

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Many French critics have castigated the 10-episode “Emily in Paris” series, tired of seeing Parisians portrayed as suspicious concierges, unfriendly bakers or waiters, or snobbish, lazy and/or flirty colleagues.

The American heroine, meanwhile, doesn't seem to ever take the metro and lives in an attic room once supposedly used for maids that is implausibly big, above a handsome neighbor who is just as implausible.

It is a sugarcoated reality that irritates Lindsey Tramuta, an American writer who has lived in Paris for 15 years.

Tramuta has written "The New Paris" and "The New Parisienne" in which she tries to show there is much more to the city than old-worldly brasseries and corner cafes.

'Instagram-filtered playground'

"We are in 2020 and we are still recycling the old cards," she says, pointing to an economic and social reality that is overlooked in a city that has experienced jihadist attacks, the Yellow Vests protest movement and mass strikes.

"It is not a harmless series of cliches," she adds.

"When Paris is portrayed incessantly that way, for generations, it contributes to a problematic long-term understanding of the place itself."

One of these problems is the so-called Paris syndrome, which people have come to call the acute disappointment felt by some tourists when they arrive in the capital and see it as it is.

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For Tramuta, the rose-tinted portrayal "is an example of the way Paris is exploited by film companies, luxury brands, authors, it makes the city look like an Instagram-filtered playground".