‘Emily In Paris’ Is Offensive, Says Ukraine’s Culture Minister

Emily in Paris on Netflix
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is again facing criticism for its stereotypical representations. Ukraine’s Culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko called the Netflix series offensive and insulting in its portrayal of a Ukrainian character, named Petra, in its second season.

The first season of Emily in Paris was one of Netflix’s most popular shows, with 58 million households watching it in its first month of release. The second season in its first week since its release has remained in Netflix’s Top 10 Shows, and has been viewed 107,640,000 hours between December 20-26, 2021. Despite its popularity suggested by the amount of views the series garners, many qualify viewing Emily in Paris as a “hate-watch.” The first and second season have been largely panned by critics. The first season was particularly slammed by viewers for depicting Parisians and France in a stereotypical way. And it seems that the show’s tendency to present nationality-based stereotypes continues in season 2.

In this second season of Emily in Paris, the young and clueless American, Emily Cooper, who moved to Paris for work, is still struggling to adjust to Parisian life. While in the first season, Emily showed no interest in learning French, this second season sees Emily attending language classes, which she is flat out failing, the series jests. During these French classes, the teacher asks her students to pair up and only speak in French to each other. Emily looks tentatively around the room, and ends up, rather reluctantly, sitting beside a young woman. Her name is Petra (played by Ukrainian actress Daria Panchenko) and is from Kyiv. Both women struggle to communicate, but one day as they meet outside of class, they do agree on going shopping together. The shopping experience, however, goes awry when Petra decides to shoplift expensive items.

It is this very scene which has led the Ukrainian Culture Minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, to complain, and quite a lot of viewers agree with him. Tkachenko wrote in a Telegram post: “We have a caricature image of a Ukrainian woman that is unacceptable. It is also insulting. Is that how Ukrainians are seen abroad? Who steal, want to get everything for free, be afraid of deportation? This should not be so.” Petra is not only portrayed shoplifting in this episode four of the second season, she is also terrified of being deported and is derided for her fashion sense (the latter being rather rich coming from a character such as Emily).

The Ukrainian Culture Minister has sent a letter of complaint to Netflix. Tkachenko claims the response he received from Netflix was “diplomatic.”

Many viewers, who have gone on Twitter to complain themselves about the show, call Petra’s character “ridiculous” and “humiliating.” One Twitter user sees the portrayal of Petra as “xenophobic” and “stereotypical,” while another found it “outrageous.”

The first season was already slammed for its nationality-based stereotypes. In an interview for Vogue, Lily Collins, who is also a producer of the series, said, “we took a lot of the critiques to heart in terms of what was spoken about after season one, first in terms of incorporating more of the French culture.” The show though has not stopped representing stereotypes. While less offensive, Alfie’s character (played by Lucien Laviscount), a British expat, who is also taking French lessons in Emily’s class, could also be termed stereotypical. Alfie spends his time in Paris drinking beer in English-speaking pubs, watching football (soccer), and refusing to learn French. This is a show that is very much based on clichés.

In an interview on The Hollywood Reporter, the creator of the series, Darren Star defended his show after receiving criticism for its first season. “The first thing she is seeing is the clichés because it’s from her point of view,” Star explained.