It hasn’t escaped me that the title of this series is the same as the title of my blog: Emily in Paris / Juliet in Paris. As I simultaneously chuckled, yawned and groaned through the first episodes, I thought to myself: she could be me. Or rather, she could’ve been me back in the 1990s when I first arrived in Paris. (Only I don’t know how she’d survive without her smartphone.)
Like Emily who works in PR/marketing, I worked in France’s largest advertising agency before moving on to the Reuters Paris bureau. Like Emily who’s having all sorts of adventures, mishaps and romances, so did I. Isn’t that the reason one comes to Paris?? To be honest, my adventures were far more salty than hers. (Of course they were, I’m a Boomer, she’s a boring Millennial.) Did she end up – not once, but twice – in a French paddy wagon? Did she meet Omar Sharif in a Deauville restaurant? She wouldn’t know who Omar Sharif is. Did she have a torrid transatlantic affair with a New Yorker who would go on, years later, to become a BIG and well-known American documentary filmmaker? (In my heart, he will be forever referred to as “the one who got away.”)
Read the adventures of Juliet in Paris in my memoir, due out in 2021. I guess you could call it ‘a family memoir’ with a heavy emphasis on me, my adventures, mishaps and romances. Incidentally, that’s not the title of the book.
Emily in Paris has only recently arrived on French Netflix. But already the series has received a deluge of criticisms from French viewers. They complain that it’s studded with one cliché after the next. But y’know what? Some of those clichés are true!
https://www.vox.com/21502498/netflix-emily-in-paris-review-millennials
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/06/plenty-to-feel-insulted-about-french-critics-round-on-emily-in-paris
Juliet in Paris
Ah Juliet! A friend was just talking about this show today… can’t wait to read your memoir ❤️
Thanks so much. I can’t wait to finish writing it!
Hi Juliet, Eileen and I started watching this show last night….kind of like a spin of Sex in the City, no surprise since its creator also led SitC…The show has some whimsy, but no depth. The best part for us are the scenes of Paris, the city from which we feel so cut off because of Covid. You may also find this review of the show and its social values interesting…..https://www.gayot.com/restaurants/state-room-chicago-il-60611_5ch00483.html
Sherm
oops, I gave you the wrong link….please delete if possible.. here is the corrected post
Hi Juliet, Eileen and I started watching this show last night….kind of like a spin of Sex in the City, no surprise since its creator also led SitC…The show has some whimsy, but no depth. The best part for us are the scenes of Paris, the city from which we feel so cut off because of Covid. You may also find this review of the show and its social values interesting….
https://www.vox.com/21502498/netflix-emily-in-paris-review-millennials
That VOX article is spot on; I’ve added it into my blog post. The show is just fluff, really, and so out of touch with reality. We never see Emily on a local bus, for example, or taking the metro. And does she make any effort to speak French? Not really. Just beautiful, almost airbrushed, scenes of Paris as well as fashion and spaces reserved only for the well-off and beautiful.
Aside from all that, though, I did like the actress – Lily Collins – who I’d never seen before. Do you know who she is? Phil Collin’s daughter!