Emily in Paris Redux: Sell the House Sell the Car Sell the Kids Find Someone Else Forget It I'm Never Coming Back

The curious way our entertainments treat work like a goof.

The name of this show should really just be Hot People in Paris.

And so it’s come to this: I am writing for a second time about the Netflix confection Emily in Paris, despite the fact that this is perhaps the least consequential show ever conceived and produced, and I am dumber for having watched the first two seasons¹. I think I could do math in my head before I watched this show. Watching it is sort of like being HAL at the end of his story in 2001: A Space Odyssey, singing “Daisy” while his brain is being turned off: You can literally sense skills and vocabulary being deleted.

So why am I writing about Emily in Paris again, despite the complete and total lack of requests for more Somers Thought vis-à-vis Emily in Paris²? Because the trailer for Season Three of this show³ has arrived, and it makes it clear that the latest piece of tired, overused sitcommy tropes in the show will be the Two Job Tango—you know, when the wacky protagonist winds up working two jobs at once, with hilarity, in theory, ensuing⁴.

In 1982, this plot line might have been mildly amusing, though I doubt it⁵. In 2022 (almost 2023), it’s infuriating, because it’s really a trope about that most horrifying of capitalist myths: That your job is anything but the theft of your life.

Coffee is For Closers

This is the single moment in the entire show that exhibits the actual ennui of working in an office.

Art is a reflection of life, so it’s important to note and analyze what it’s reflecting into your living room. And while I certainly hope no one is basing their life on Emily in Paris, seeing certain images over and over again certainly does have an effect on how we view and manage our lives. TV shows and movies have long presented working life as a kind of capitalist dream, where smart, attractive people do what they love and only incidentally get paid for it⁶. Overwork has always been celebrated in American culture, and in fiction jobs are often presented to us as extensions of ourselves if not the sole reason we exist⁷. And this is given a glamorous sheen, too, which is the real kick in the balls of it all: The folks who do nothing but work all day every day—whether they’re lawyers, or doctors, or accountants—are held up as satisfied people who are happy in their work.

That can make you worry that you’re an unmutual loser when you watch all these happy, attractive people smiling through another 20-hour work day and you spent 11 hours commuting and working in pure misery⁸. But it’s even worse in a piece of trifle like Emily in Paris, because it’s a show that doesn’t just portray dedicating your life to a job as a fun, kicky adventure, it also makes working a job look pretty easy⁹. In shows like Emily, work is just a place you go where you have wacky conversations with your wacky colleagues, meet some cutie in sales, and have a series of emotionally satisfying wins¹⁰. A show like this makes you feel like there’s something wrong with you if you hate selling your life off in ten hour blocks every weekday.

And then the show doubles down on this by having Emily (Lily Collins) stumble into a situation where she’s so successful and valued as an employee (truly mystifying, as she’s by all appearances not very smart and more than a little incompetent) that she’s secretly working for two rival companies. Sure, sure, this is all done for the LOLs, it’s a crazy situation that could only occur in a situation comedy. But it still underscores the overall oppressive message of so much of our fiction: Working is a pleasure, and so enjoyable and fundamental to our existences that we all could work two jobs and the only result would be being twice as happy¹¹.

Fuck you. That's my name.

When life hands you problems, make problemade. And wear these INCREDIBLE pants.

Emily in Paris is a fantasy, of course—a young woman with a slim resume and zero cultural knowledge¹² gets a dream job in a beautiful European city, meets many attractive love interests, and has adventures—no one is tuning in to this piece of crap to see Emily spend long hours at her job, miserably trying to impress a boss, then stagger home to catch a few hours sleep before heading out to do it all over again¹³. And many people do see their career as a gateway to a certain lifestyle—travel, business dinners, fabulous outfits¹⁴.

The problem with most fictional depictions of work is how little work is depicted. Jobs in television shows and films are so often presented as easy, low-friction affairs. In some cases there is some justification for this: The characters are brilliant and talented and doing stuff they naturally enjoy, which makes the work easy and natural. But often even this flimsy bit of fiction is skipped over, and jobs are just depicted as cool places where one hangs out for a few hours every day¹⁵.

This is exacerbated when shows like Emily dig up the hoary old Two Job Tango, because now Emily is working two jobs, which is the actual horrific situation for many people around the world—some folks even have three and still can’t pay the rent!—and it’s presented as a minor inconvenience for her and a source of comedy¹⁶. It’s not the comedy part that rankles—certainly, mine Emily’s idiotic incompetence for every laugh it’s got¹⁷—but the way having two full-time professional jobs is presented as something a person as obviously stupid as Emily could reasonably maintain for any length of time. It’s the ultimate endpoint of this capitalist fantasy: Emily can handle two jobs and worry only about the personal relationships she’s risked because the actual work is easy and she still has plenty of time to eat right, sleep well, and worry more about her love life and other goals than her actual job¹⁸.

In short: Sometimes a little reality is necessary, even in a lighthearted fantasy like Emily in Paris. Then again, I might simply be bitter since I’m a man who has always barely handled one job due to incompetence and sleepiness; two jobs would surely kill me.

Next week: The horror movie I have nothing to say about.

1. And before you say anything, yes, I know I wasn’t so smart to begin with. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? Because I am not.

2. Or any other Somers Thought, to be honest, which is kind of hurtful as disseminating Somers Thought is the whole point of my entire existence.

3. Let’s not contemplate the fact that a show as slimly conceived and badly written as this gets three seasons and yet the world has zero Avery Cates films. I day drink too much already.

4. I barely held down one job with my slim set of skills, so the idea that I might have — at any time in my life — been capable of holding down two is a) insulting and b) exhausting.

5. Then again, people apparently thought the whole “married life is just misery with extra steps” trope was fucking hilarious, so what do I know?

6. And — and this is absolutely crucial to understand — look amazing doing it. No better way to sell exploitation than to dress it up in a fantastic outfit and have a handsome, smiling person model it.

7. The moment you realize that there’s a reason the standard ice-breaking question is “what do you do” is the moment you perfect your existential-stare-into-the-distance expression.

8. Luckily, I realized I am the Unmutual Loser long ago, and have accepted it. Is UNMUTUAL LOSER the name of my bar band? Why not!

9. In college I applied for a job working in a small convenience store. The interview was working a shift there (which: fair). It was horrible, and when I didn’t get the job I was relieved.

10. To be fair, when I worked in an office there were a lot of wacky conversations with colleagues. Also: Ugly crying, day drinking, and nervous breakdowns. You do the math.

11. Sub-implication: You should be working two jobs to bolster the glorious economy, and the only reason you’re not is pure selfishness.

12. I can’t even order a drink in Paris without three semesters of French, how the FUCK is this girl killing it professionally? I’m sorry, the French are … not this friendly.

13. If there was an entire episode that showed Emily just crying herself to sleep repeatedly over the course of a day, then I might change my opinion of this show.

14. When I got my first real job at the tender age of 23, I showed up for work wearing pants that were easily two sizes too large for me. If you’re guessing I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time, you would be correct. And also: Mean.

15. To be fair, my Day Job was pretty much a place I hung out every day. It just wasn’t very glamorous.

16. I am using the term comedy very loosely, in case that’s not obvious.

17. This is also my approach to my writing career.

18. I will admit that when I had a Day Job I worried more about where I was drinking after work than anything else. Which kind of explains why I don’t have that job any more.