Emily in Paris is no Sex in the City. But it's all we've got right now.
Do we ever know what the best days of our lives are when they’re happening, or do we have to wait until they’re over?
This is the midweek what-to-watch edition of Snarky Senior — the newsletter from Erica Manfred, which you can read about here. If you like it and don’t want to miss an issue, you can get it in your inbox by subscribing.
Like everyone else in the world I’ve hate binged the latest Netflix rom com, Emily in Paris, an anemic throwback to Sex and the City without the witty script and iconic actors. Much though I despise Emily in Paris for NOT being Sex and the City I have to give it a pass because at least it attempts to be frothy, a genre TV seems to have given up on these days when comedies all seem to be about the absurdities inherent in gritty real life dilemmas.
The popularity of this mediocre show proves how we are all desperate for escapism— as long as it takes place in a romantic, glittering city where there’s no garbage on the street and beautiful, though idiotic, overdressed young girls who don’t speak the language succeed at jobs they are manifestly unsuited for..
I swore not to recommend shows with naked nubile young things rolling around in bed but no worries there. The sex in Emily in Paris is barely PG. Emily wears a bra in bed (who does that?) and then holds her blankets to the chin after the deed is done. The “hot chef” everyone is talking about is no Mr. Big.
Frothy shows can be lifesavers when times are grim. Even stupid ones. I should know. Sex and the city saved my life—literally.
The days, weeks, months after my husband left me for another woman were the worst time of my life. At age 60, after 18 years of marriage, I was devastated. Therapy didn’t help. Prozac didn’t help.
Only one thing helped: Sex and the City.
It transported me back to the life I lived before I married a loser in the first place. Watching Carrie and the girls allowed me to imagine I was single girl in my thirties again, on the loose in New York, hanging out with my friends, chasing men. Whenever I felt suicidal I’d rent a Sex and the City tape (this was way before streaming or DVDs) and go back in time. I rationed those tapes for my worst moments.
I didn’t appreciate at the time how fabulous my New York life was in the 60s and 70s— before AIDS—before women were expected to have serious careers and before New York became an enclave for the obscenely rich. My group of female friends were almost exactly like the Sex and the City girls minus the Manolos and the luxurious apartments. We didn’t have money but you didn’t need money or a glamorous wardrobe in those days to meet hot guys and get into the trendiest clubs. You just needed to be young and cute and sexually adventurous.
We assumed that those years we spent exchanging graphic details of our sex lives, clubbing and bar hopping, laughing about our exploits, discussing the deep inner meaning of life--were a big waste of time. We assumed the goal should be marriage, or at least monogamy. Careers were not on our radar. We didn’t want to be secretaries, social workers, nurses or teachers—women’s jobs. Not much else was available. Our peers were already married with kids. We were the holdouts. The women’s movement was making inroads but not in our lives—not yet. We were aimless party girls and we liked it that way.
I never suspected that those lazy, languorous afternoons schmoozing and nights barhopping would turn out to be the best days of my life. Do we ever know what the best days of our lives are when they’re happening, or do we have to wait until they’re over? I thought I was waiting for my life to begin. Little did I know it was soon to be over. Trapped in a dreary marriage, I never experienced carefree fun or female camaraderie like that again.
I hope there are some twenty or thirty-somethings today for whom Emily in Paris is providing a role model. She’s clueless but intrepid. She takes off to a foreign city for adventures and dumps her American boyfriend when he won’t accept her move. Her choice of profession as an “influencer” is a sheer fantasy, and her wardrobe would be more suitable for Cirque de Soleil than business, but then Carrie Bradshaw supposedly supported her fabulous lifestyle as a freelance writer!
I may have totally forgotten what it’s like to be Emily’s age, but I can relate to Sylvie, Emily’s French boss, played by the stunning 57 year old Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu. I applaud her disdain for Emily’s oppressive smiley optimism and agree that American mandatory positive thinking is unsophisticated and downright rude. I have been accused my whole life of being negative. Maybe I’m actually French and didn’t know it. Sylvie’s open contempt for smarmy Emily warms my heart. Vive le France.
And Vive Emily in Paris. It may be only a slight respite from pandemic isolation but I guess we have to be grateful for what we can get when so many TV series have been suspended because of coronavirus.
I just hope season two steps up the game for Sylvie with an older man I can swoon over. Maybe Chris Noth (Mr. Big) is available.
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