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

"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".

Criticized too for magnifying the French-US culture clash, "Emily in Paris" has nevertheless found success in recycling the decades-old cliches and Netflix is entirely at ease with that.

"If Emily had come to your city and not 'in Paris', what would the big cliches of the series be?," it joked on Twitter.

"Take Emily in Marseille = it's always sunny, the old port smells of sardines and Jul wanders the streets," it added, referring to a rapper born in the French southern city.

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For Agnes Poirier, the author of "Left Bank", a book on Paris's post-war intellectual and cultural life, "cliches all have an element of truth or they wouldn't be cliches.