Deanna Wright

Emily should not be in Paris. 

Netflix’s recent series,“Emily in Paris,” is a romcom that is getting backlash after only being on the streaming service for a couple weeks. Netflix picked up the show after it was originally supposed to air on America’s Paramount Network. 

“I feel like it romanticizes everything, maybe a bit too much, there’s more to Paris than romance and food,” sophomore Morgan Giberti said. 

Many fans of Netflix shows “GLOW” and “Teenage Bounty Hunters” criticize “Emily in Paris” unsatisfied that those shows were cancelled recently by the streaming service. 

Many critics are criticizing the series for representing the French culture in the wrong way. They point out how many of the French people in this show actually end up speaking more English than French. About 39 percent of the French population can speak English but many rather speak French because of fear, pride, or just laziness. 

Even the New York Times published an article about multiple interviews they had with French subjects. In the article one of the subjects stated there are so many cliches that they become comical in the show’s exaggeration of them. French citizens would not insult someone behind their back, like Emily’s boss, Sylvie, does stated another subject. The French radio station RTL even claims the series makes Parisians’ home and everyday life unrecognizable.

“I think it shows their lives as a bit too dramatic to be believable,” sophomore Claire Dininger said. 

But the show is not getting all their backlash from French critics. Chicago pizza chain Lou Malnati’s does not appreciate the dig at their pizza. In the first episode of the series, the main character, Emily throws a dig at their pizza by telling her boss, who had bad Chicago-style pizza, that she “must have gone to Lou Malnati’s and found it disgusting.” The chain was not amused by this at all and issued a press release condemning the joke and the writers of the series. 

Lucas Bravo, who plays a love interest to Emily, gave ET Canada a statement about the backlash. 

“I think they are right, in a way,” Bravo said. “We’re portraying one single vision of Paris. We have so many ways of thinking.” 

Even though this new series is getting backlash from critics, some fans don’t know if this vision is portraying the French culture correctly or not.

“As someone who has never traveled outside of the country, I could not tell if it was an accurate presentation of French culture,” senior Alexa Dagostino.

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