Even without "Emily in Paris", clichés about France die hard

Lily Collins in Emily in Paris.

-

• In the series

  Emily in Paris

  , available on Netflix, the heroine arrives in a postcard capital of France.

  Freedom, glass of rosé, infidelity ... The ten episodes link stereotypes about France and the French.

• “In the eyes of Americans, the French know how to live.

  They project on the French an intriguing character, who refuses to have his morals dictated by others ”, explains to

  20 Minutes

  John Von Staten, journalist of American origin living in Paris since 2002.

• "This fetishized vision is problematic because it involves a big problem of representation and creates false expectations," said

   journalist Lindsey Tramuta, naturalized French in 2014

  , to

  20 Minutes

  .

Berets.

Croissants.

The baguettes.

The sinister servers.

The irascible concierges.

The dredgers at all hours.

The lovers and the mistresses.

Quote a cliché about France and the French: you will find it in

.

Released on Netflix on Friday, the new series from Darren Star, the creator of

, is garnering passionate comments on social media.

There are those who savor these stereotypes like macaroons and the others, who would throw it all in the Seine.

This story of an American arriving in a postcard capital and candidly discovering

customs

works: the series is this Monday the most watched on the platform worldwide.

Surprising?

Absolutely not.

The stories of Anglo-Saxons recounting their stays in France, fed by the shock of cultures, are in themselves a sub-genre of literature.

From

by Ernest Hemingway to

by Peter Mayle - adapted for film by Ridley Scott in 2006 - at least flattering

Stephen Clarke's

, there's plenty to fill entire shelves with a library.

You just have to take a trip to WH Smith, an English-speaking store in the rue de Rivoli, to have the proof.

Among the books on the shelves,

by John Von Sothen, which has just been published in the United States, where it has met with great success.

The author has not seen

, but he admits that before settling in the largest city in France, he had clichés well anchored in his head.

His mother's fault.

"She was an American in Paris in the 1950s. She studied at Beaux-Arts, lived on the Ile Saint-Louis and had lots of wacky artist friends," John Von Sothen explains to

.

"Americans think that all French people are swingers"

When he landed from Washington in 2002, to move to the tenth district, this idealized vision was quickly shattered.

Almost twenty years later, he has become one of those French people who get annoyed with the Instagram filters that Americans place on the image of his adopted country.

He therefore took up the pen to "torpedo clichés and portray a more modern, more diverse France".

A challenge, because the fascination exercised by our country on the other side of the Atlantic is well established.

John Von Sothen talks to us with amusement about his American friends who start smoking as soon as they land at Roissy as if to sacrifice to local customs.

Or the way they fantasize about the sexuality of Choderlos de Laclos compatriots.

“They think everyone here is a swinger.

They project on the French an intriguing character, who refuses to have his morals dictated by others.

"

More prosaically, and objectively, "Social Security, universities with affordable tuition fees and great food" are envied in Uncle Sam. "When you're bad as a society, you always think that weed is greener elsewhere, believes the author of Monsieur Mediocre.

In their eyes, the French know how to live, without necessarily having a huge income.

"

A preconceived idea that

only reinforces.

The heroine puts her luggage close to the Pantheon, in a maid's room… 50 square meters.

She quickly follows the advice of a colleague telling her that here "we don't live to work, but we work to live".

She then readily complies with what looks like a national sport: the assiduous attendance of the terraces.

The ten episodes sell a dreamed Paris to the extreme as the Tourist Office would not dare to promote.

"Paris deserves better"

"Given this context of health crisis, election year, total chaos and the impossibility of traveling, it is true that the very perfect scenes of Paris make Americans dream," admits Lindsey Tramuta to

.

Originally from the United States, settled in Paris for more than fourteen years and naturalized French in 2014, the journalist adds: “but the city has always made people dream.

"

And to go back in time to the thinkers of the 18th century.

“Jean-Jacques Rousseau is among those who began to nurture the image of the superficial, seductive Parisian, concerned with fashion and materialistic aspects.

At that time, with infrastructures like the Pont Neuf, the city was considered innovative.

Eyes have already been riveted on Paris and its citizens for generations.

In popular culture, this has been picked up and hijacked.

»From Gene Kelly in

in 1951 to Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!

Fifty years later or, more recently, Owen Wilson in

and Emma Stone in

, Hollywood stars have continued to take international audiences on a journey to a French capital disconnected from reality.

Emily in Paris / Mélody in Paris 🤣 pic.twitter.com/vKINIREpFk

- melody___t (@melody___t) October 4, 2020

"A lot of Americans think that it does not matter, that one can appreciate a light fiction knowing that it is not realistic, that it is embellished," continues Lindsey Tramuta.

But this fetishized view is problematic because it involves a big problem of representation and creates false expectations.

This is serious because it perpetuates the fantasy of the museum city without problem, without dirt, without crime, without realistic everyday life.

Everything helps to reaffirm stereotypes that are already well integrated and that does not help Paris.

Paris deserves better.

"The journalist is convinced," it would be possible to make a film or a series based in Paris, mixing reality with the dose of fantasy that gives pleasure.

Nobody makes that effort.

However, there is something to dream about with the real Paris.

"

New Parisians

If Emily in Paris's beret-croissant-oh-la-famille-à-trois clichés do not seem very bad, the fact that the cosmopolitan and diverse dimension of the capital is almost absent from the ten episodes.

“Considering the sensitivity around these subjects in the United States, it is shocking that an American production did not reflect better on these aspects.

We continue with this bleaching of life.

Socially and economically speaking, it is a series that misses the mark, ”lashes Lindsey Tramuta.

The thirty-something has just published

, a book portraying women embodying today's Paris from Anne Hidalgo to Inna Modja, from Delphine Horvilleur to Leïla Slimani or Lauren Bastide… A way of showing that the figure of the Parisian can be just as inspiring without necessarily being, among others, white, heterosexual, cisgender and / or under the age of 40.

The occasion also, to propose other representations to the Anglo-Saxon imaginaries.

The New Parisienne

was to be translated into French during 2021. John Von Sothen, for his part, deplores that his

does not seem close to being published in the language of Molière.

“The editors think that the French are not going to be interested in the testimony of an American finding that the 10th arrondissement is great.

They want something that fits the clichés.

»And if we were, French and French, the only ones responsible for the stereotypes with which we are told?

I'll let you think about it.

In the meantime, I must choose a bottle of Bordeaux to accompany my Camembert in order to start my RTT nestled in my striped shirt.

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