the classblindness of Emily in Paris

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[AliceCappelle]

I really struggled to find a conclusion to this video as I kept on circling back to the "it's supposed to be an escapist show and people want to see it like it so your criticism on it will always be limited/easy to counter" so I'm open to your criticism and perspective on the show, the politics/lack of politics of it. Let's continue the conversation over here :)

[vinniechan]

watching Emily in Paris to learn about France (or Paris) it's like learning Kazakhstan's culture by watching Borat.

[Atomality]

Emily's Paris is surprisingly small. Walk into any café or restaurant and you are bound to bump into a friend, colleague or client. The whole show is so unintentionally funny and weird. My favourite scene: Mindy moaning that she has no money and owes Emily, while throwing herself on the bed - in a Gucci dress. I had to stop Netflix and found myself screaming at the screen: Are you kidding me? Sell your f***ing dress.

[MrJ]

”How could someone want to watch something so unrealistic?”

*KDrama has entered the chat*

[sarah]

Loved the opening scene in the new season where 2 working class girls had about $10k worth of Louis Vuitton bags on the table lol

[ama]

Emilys apartment is honestly the most luxurious chambre de bonne I ever seen 💀

[AamuAurora]

Class differences aside. I don't enjoy this kind of escapism because it's not a utopia but post-capitalistic nightmare where fashion is limited to expensive clothes and art, like architecture, design or paintings, are used only to signal wealth. However, the diversity. It's ridiculous. I've been to Paris couple of time with my friend from Luxemburg. She was working there for some time in finance and she was very realistic in her portrayal of the city that wasn't limited to Hollywood-core. There are people of France of Arabic, African and Asian descent. That was the first thing I noticed about Paris in comparison to Champagne where I spent the summer. Looking at trailers and snippets of the show I've seen so far, Paris through lense of the creators is a city full of default rich, white characterless people. Writers purposefully ignore rich and vibrant scene full of people that don't fit that mold.

[friendlyspaceninja]

I love how the people behind the show keep saying "It's meant to be a fantasy" as a way to escape criticism from its flaws, both when it comes to cultural portrayals and overall lazy writing. It's like defending a mediocre show by simply saying "It's camp!"

Great video! Ultimately, because of its initial shortcomings, Emily In Paris will now always be scrutinized for its inaccuracies. They will always stand out, and while it's never gonna be perfect, it doesn't mean other shows can't learn from it and be more aware!

[giovanyorozco]

Anyone can make a critique of Emily in Paris, but only a truly French video-essayist will make a class critique of Emily in Paris and that's the best reason to watch this channel!

[maniak]

The average American woman living in suburbia that watches 'Emily in Paris' cannot even begin to imagine the concept of public transit, because there is none to speak of where this audience lives. That's probably the reason why the metro is never shown or dealt with as a problem.

[sxt]

I don’t watch Emily In Paris because the fashion in the show disturbs me greatly, but as an American who went to college in NYC and worked in LA, the two cities that dominate US television and movies, this is a common theme throughout American shows and Emily In Paris is produced by an American production company I used to intern for (ironically I had to quit my internship because they refused to pay me lol).

NYC, LA, London and Paris are EXTREMELY expensive cities. The joke that was always made while I was in college was that someone who made $500K/yr was “New York Broke” because the cost of living was so ridiculous that even a successful person would find it hard to keep up with all the expenses while maintaining a nice lifestyle there. Most of my wealthy friends in college never had access to the money their parents had because it was locked away in a trust. Their basic needs may have been covered (in extreme cases they weren’t) but they’d have to go an work to make a disposable income to do other things like grocery shopping, or just going out on the town.

Though these shows are incredibly misleading for the average viewer, what I will say is that this kind of reality is not far off for upper middle class and wealthy kids in the US who experience being on their own for the first time either in college or after leaving college and working for the first time. They aren’t necessarily poor because they have support from their parents, the institutions they attend, and they have all the same clothes and luxuries they brought with them from home, but they aren’t well off anymore either because many of them are put on an allowance, or are cut off financially and must work and get scholarships and fellowships to live. They receive the benefits of being raised upper class, but they are almost put through a boot camp of temporary struggle while starting their educational and professional careers to “make it on their own” even though we all know they wouldn’t even get into big universities, internships or jobs at desirable companies if they had not come from upper class backgrounds to begin with.

It’s the illusion of “started from the bottom now we here” when really they started close to the top of the hill and their parents and connections pushed them to the top. I hope that makes sense whew!

[MattieAMiller]

Paris Syndrome is a real thing where a tourist (usually from Japan/East Asia) will have an acute panic attack because they were expecting basically Disneyland in Europe, but found themself in a real world city with real world problems. It's not common, but it absolutely happens, and I feel like EiP is going to see that problem spread to American tourists.

[lishpnvu]

Life as an expat is a form of escapism. Class and race differences are often minimized or even disappear depending on where you come from and where you move to. Being able to communicate and talk about shared experiences becomes a stronger foundation for connection than anything else. For me, this makes the relationship between Camille, Emily, and Mindy easier to believe.

[memo-fqps]

It's not just Emily in Paris tbh. I think Hollywood has a long history of writing characters with low income or middle class income jobs living luxurious lives, or portraying certain well-known cities or countries as being perfect and beautiful. You'll see so many movies where the parents have two normal jobs but somehow their houses are huge, they have latest gadgets, they're all wearing expensive looking clothes, and they're constantly travelling with no worry about money. Or you see movies in a well-known city, and the movie is full of picture perfect mansions with nice cars, when in reality, most of the time, the cities they're portraying just look normal or even very crappy in real life (bonus if everyone in the movie is white even though they live in a city that's very ethnically diverse). I get why sitcoms might have huge living rooms (because it's easier to film that way, I think) or why movies that are supposed to be hugely exaggerated for comedic effect don't have everything being 100% realistic, but a lot of these shows are trying to be "relatable", as if they're trying to say, "THIS is how normal people live nowadays."
I guess Emily in Paris is supposed to be an escapist show, and I'm sure the plot relies on glorifying things, but it can be a problem when a show that portrays itself as being "realistic" and show "normal" people being "relatable" is everything but that, especially since a lot of people believe everything they see on social media, movies, and TV shows, and it can make the legitimate complaints of having less money become invalidated if young people or families with low wages are seen living life as if they have more money than they actually do.
I'm not saying that the people making these shows or movies need to do years of extensive research on the place the show is set in or that they need to be 100% perfect, but they could at least try to do some research, or at least use their common sense.

[saint_silver]

In French and English

Mon vrai problème avec la série est qu'après trois saisons on a toujours pas vu une femme noire ou une personne issue de l'immigration arabo-magrhébine. Je défendais la série pendant les premières saisons justement avec des arguments d'escapism et le fait que Emily traîne dans des lieux et des milieux socio professionels aisés et souvent très blancs. Mais après Trois saisons, ce non choix est un choix (pour reprendre la morale de la saision), et un choix dangereux - représenter Paris comme une ville blanche est non seulement faux, mais c'est aussi un choix politique irresponsable voire dangereux dans une époque aussi instable avec la montée de l'extrême droite et de la violence raciste en France.

My real problem with the series is that after three seasons we still haven't seen a black woman or a person of Arab-Maghrebi descent. I defended the series during the first seasons precisely with arguments of escapism and the fact that Emily hangs out in places and spheres that are often haunted by very affluent and very white socio-professional backgrounds. But after three saisons, this non-choice is a choice (to use the moral of the season), and a dangerous choice - to represent Paris as a white city is not only wrong, but it is also an irresponsible or even dangerous political choice in times of the rise of the far right and racist violence in France. There are black and arabs french and there are black and arabs parisians

[harriet.z]

I am from East Asia and now working and living in the US. Class & ethnicity divides worked and looked slightly differently, so I always like to think about what I’ve seen here after living in suburbs, cities, and mid-sized towns. When I was interning in NYC, renting in a very cheap accommodations far away from the city, I really saw how *extreme* American TV whitewashes & glamorizes it’s cities. Outside the city center, it seemed even the government doesn’t even want to take care of its local communities, from the cleanliness of the streets I’ve seen compared to the financial center buildings I passed on my way to work. I think most Americans who live in suburbs or “fly-over” states do NOT realize what their own country looks like, and that’s terrifying because like other comments mentioned, it creates a sense of entitlement in them that this country is supposed to look white & rich, and they deserve the best, and most of all, that they already are.

[nikotuba]

I'd look at their jobs; in the series we have the world of luxury brands, bullshit marketing jobs and only one person who is doing actual job being a chef. The world of work doesn't exist, it's a constant stream of hedonism and status play

[Judep]

Watching Emily in Paris feels like the dog has left the TV on to keep me company while he goes out

[annal]

I think that we should approach a show like Emily in Paris like it's science fiction tbh

[endlessteatime]

Emily in Paris is Alice in Wonderand. It's fantasy, it's what the Japanese call isekai - a genre where a character gets thrown into a different world and has to learn to deal with it. I don't think any person with a minimum of critical thinking ability will believe that the Paris in EiP is a representation of reality. I can imagine it's hard to watch as a Parisian but frankly, it was never made for Parisians.