How one popular Netflix series released in the thick of COVID-19 quarantines sparked several noteworthy debates.
Emily in Paris, the Netflix comedy, has been making headlines since it’s first season was released last year. Because it was released in the thick of quarantine for a majority of viewers across the globe, audiences everywhere streamed the show because, well, there was not much better to do. While stuck at home, 58 million households had seen season 1 within one month of it’s release. Families, mothers and daughters, and teenagers snuggled up in bed to see what all the buzz was about. Netflix called Emily in Paris their most popular comedy series of 2020. The show even won a Golden Globe nomination for best comedy.
Despite it’s immense popularity, masses of people have been quick to hate the series. Most critics slammed Season 1 for it’s offensive stereotypes about Parisians, calling it a “Disney-fication” of Paris. Some critics have even deemed it a “hate-watch” that you just can’t look away from, no matter how bad. For such a popular show, Emily in Paris has garnered a plethora of terrible reviews. As I finished Season 2 in one sitting, one question I couldn’t get over kept gnawing at me: Why does everyone hate this show so much? Why had this show, which a majority of critics have slammed as mediocre writing, unrealistic, and fluffy, struck such a cord among so many audiences?
Lily Collins, starring as Emily Cooper, allowed us to escape to the bright, colorful, picturesque Paris of our dreams. She is always running around the city in heels, taking pictures, carrying super tiny purses, posting to instagram. She doesn’t seem to worry about finances, relatives, or any normal, daily adult problems.
That’s the thing about Emily in Paris: it’s not real. Emily is a happy girl. Her biggest problem is deciding between the many attractive men that seem to fall in her lap, and learning French. She is constantly achieving high praise in her job, saving the day, and brainstorming the best new marketing ideas, despite comical snafus here and there. Her hair is always curled, her outfit always perfect, and the details always seem to magically work themselves out. The same goes for the other characters too– while of course there is conflict, none of it is tense or high stakes. It’s predictable, easy to digest, a true guilty pleasure phenomenon.
In a time when everything is uncertain, and the world seems to be crumbling down around us, Emily in Paris offers a welcome respite. Because while businesses are shut down, travel nearly impossible, and a new strain of COVID surging, it’s incredibly fun to live in a fantasy world, even if just for a moment.
So yes, I believe the show is completely escapist. We want to be Emily, prancing around Paris, great at our jobs, everything going right, money not seeming to be a problem. My question is: why is that so bad?
The escapist fiction genre gained great popularity during the global Great Depression of the 1930’s. Fun entertainment provided a happy distraction from the hardships and unemployment rates of real life. Authors and writers created entirely new fantasy worlds for audiences to enter, leaving their problems behind for a little bit. As a genre, escapism has largely been regarded as subpar, misleading, shallow, and superficial by literary scholars. For some reason, when literature is deemed escapist, it comes with negative connotations.
Yet, I believe Emily in Paris asks us to question the notion that because something is an exacpaist guilty pleasure it cannot be considered high art. Emily’s character is bright, bubbly, and unwaveringly optimistic. Her best friend is incredibly supportive, uplifting, and determined. She navigates complicated relationships with lovers and friends, while trying to maintain her professional life and gain her bearings in a new city. On some level, Emily in Paris deals with the basic form of real problems in a shiny, pretty, rose-colored-glasses way. There is inherent privilege and unrealistic luck underpinning each episode of Emily in Paris. Of course in real life, adult challenges are not so easily or stylishly won. Friends don’t forgive you for cheating so easily. We should remember, especially for young girls, that TV shows are scripted, not real. But maybe it’s okay to optimistically hope that they could be, in a small way. To move through life with fashion, with great pomp and circumstance, believing you can handle any mixup or misunderstanding, even if you decide to move abroad without knowing the language. Sometimes it just feels nice to buy into that message, and I think that’s a-okay.
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