Helpful life lessons we can get from 'Emily in Paris'
Minor spoilers ahead!
Beyond entertainment, there are TV shows that impact you in one way or another. Either you relate to a character, you were in the same situation, or it has taught you an invaluable life lesson.
By now you must have heard about Emily in Paris from your Sex and the City or Gossip Girl-obsessed friends. The show follows Emily Cooper, a a digital-marketing millennial who moves from Chicago to Paris after she was offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to bring “an American perspective” into French agency, Savoir.
Beyond fashion, hot men, and beautiful shooting locations, Emily in Paris gives light on career, relationships, and self love. Here are the takeaways we’ve learned from Emily in Paris.
1. Handle it with grace—but know when to stand up for yourself
We know from the very first episode that it wasn’t going to be easy for Emily to be working at Savoir. On her first day, she left a bad impression at work for not speaking French, and continued to struggle to connect with the rest of them especially with her boss, Sylvie.
Brave and plucky as she is, Emily continues to present a calm aura even in the most difficult of situations (or persons). When feelings are high, Emily knows how to take a pause, and instead reaches out to her good friend Mindy to vent out.
When she thinks people are going too far, though, like being called “Le Plouc” (redneck), or when she was judged as “basic,” she lets people know she has feelings, too.
2. It’s okay to speak your mind
In episode 3, Emily had an issue about the way women were depicted in a perfume commercial for their client, De L’Heure. She found that having a model walk naked on the bridge while several men gaze at her is sexist and insensitive to women. She had a discussion with Sylvie and the company owner, Antoine Lambert, and told them they need to “be sensitive to the way women are thinking now”.
Emily learns that the vagina takes the masculine article "le" in French (equivalent to the non-gender English "the") when she was working on a campaign for Vaga-Jeune. Annoyed, she posts about it on Twitter saying, “The vagina is not male!”—which got retweeted by Vaga-Jeune’s CEO. In the end, her intimidating boss Sylvie praised her.
3. Learn to be proactive
When faced with a problem, Emily somehow always finds a way to fix it. She booked the wrong reservation? There’s Gabriel to save her. They needed a location for Pierre Cadeau’s fashion show? She got an idea. She wanted to regain a client’s trust? Possible. All this because Emily thinks and acts ahead of the requests—she knows how to acknowledge her mistakes, she takes on the responsibility, and strives to solve what she can in order to achieve a goal. When things don’t go as planned, always remember “We need to look at things at a different perspective,” as Emily said.
4. Don’t settle for less
The ladies in this series had their fair share of complicated romances. Remember Emily’s American boyfriend Doug? Not only did he cancel his Paris trip the last minute, but he also asked Emily to give up her dream job and return to their fun-filled life in Chicago (and also because he didn’t know how to do long-distance).
Then there’s Gabriel, the hot chef neighbor whom she flirts with occasionally, but turns out to be the boyfriend of her new friend Camille. Sylvie, on the other hand, is a mistress of Antoine, who was faced in an awkward situation with Antoine and his wife.
Like any human being, these ladies aren’t taking any BS. Emily did tell Gabriel that she doesn’t want to be an option.“I’m not somebody who can share a whole crepe. I need the whole crepe.” And as for Sylvie, she won’t be falling for Antoine’s tricks anymore.
5. Find friends who will be there for you no matter what
Emily’s Chinese-Korean friend Mindy left her good life in China not wanting to live the life her parents plan for her. Ashamed that her Chinese friends won’t like her, she lied about being busy in business school in Paris, being cut-off from inheritance, and kept her job as a nanny a secret. But turns out, they knew about it and gave her a surprise.
Watch the full trailer of Emily in Paris below.
Banner image from Netflix