We've been watching Emily In Paris, a lighthearted series about a young American woman sent to work in the newly-acquired Paris branch of a marketing firm. It's a light and easy, brain-in-neutral watch of an evening; we're up to ep9 or thereabouts, and I have am growing an ever stronger sense of unease with the series — things that bother me about the whole schtick.
We can (though we shouldn't!) gloss over the whole "Parisians are almost uniformly cliquey, rude and intolerant" as just a thing the world is supposed to believe about them. It's only slightly relieve by a couple comments by characters about the arrogance of Americans who move to a country and scarcely bother to actually learn the language. We'll not even delve into the English-speaking "French" characters whose accents slide steadily further from French into the actors' native Californian as the series progresses. Even the Chinese woman.
Episodes all stand almost entirely alone, with only the most meagre shards of long-arc storyline beyond the entirely predictable and tiresome love interest between Emily and her downstairs neighbour, the hot French chef (not at all stereotypical!) Most episodes follow a plot involving conflict between the "life comes first" attitude of the French characters, portrayed as the European approach, and the American "we're defined by our work ethic" where working a 90-hour week is considered admirable. And, with a boring predictability, the American girl always proves to have had the right idea, and has her invasive, panoptic behaviours vindicated in the name of Selling More Shit. This is American culture export at its most blatant, and I'm finding it more and more difficult to swallow as the episodes roll by. The French are portrayed as sophisticated shoppers, eaters and lovers, but hopelessly clueless at engaging with 21st century marketing in the form of social media advertising and product placement, the only thing of real value, of course. At least according to Emily In Paris's American writers and producers.
And that brings me to one of the more nauseating aspects of the show... the whole notion that marketing luxury brands is somehow a worthwhile activity in the first place, and that "social media" is the modern way to do it right. Out here in reality, the whole notion of social media "influencers" is toxic swill that ruins what started out as a reasonably benign way for people to connect with others sharing like interests.
What sort of world has been created where people make their living by attracting the approval of millions of strangers, and thereby feeding off the orts and leavings of gigantic American corporations? What sort of hollow person are you that you're so dependent on the approval of others? It's bad enough when people believe that for their own self-actualisation or self-esteem, but to have your income depend on that fickle whim...?
And what sort of suckers are we supposed to be taken for if we believe that the designer dress dropped into the aftermath of a drug-fueled party by some barbie-doll TikTok star of 30 seconds fame is somehow an item we should aspire to acquiring. Is everybody just defined by how much they buy? By how much we consume? By our contribution to Line Go Up? What the fuck do they think we use for brains out here in the rest of the world?
I find myself constantly wondering just how narcisistic a person has to be to constantly take pictures and video of yourself — selfies — especially when it's all in the name of shopping.
This series is an entirely educative insight into the empty vapidity, the valueless vacuum that is "marketing".