Ah, it seems the virus of horrible female leads has spread to Netflix series as well.
I may not be well-versed in French culture, but I sure am well versed in Chinese media lingo, In the recent years there's been a flood of badly-written, unrelatable, and just all-round unlikable female leads in Chinese dramas.
We have the 玛丽苏 (English: Mary-Sues- represented by Empress Wu in Fan Bing Bing's Empress of China), we have the 绿茶婊 (English: "Green Tea Bitch", girls who act all goody-two-shoes and kind and innocent but sleep with other women's husbands; represented by Wei Zi Fu in Raymond Lam's Virtuous Empress of Han, lol the irony), we have the 傻Ⅹ女主 (English: Incompetent, usually also noisy and unlikeable, female lead who ruins everything she touches and constantly needs a man to save her; represented by Lu Zhen in Zhao Li Ying's Female Prime Minister, again the irony).
Today I've had the misfortune of meeting a female lead who meets all three definitions.
Meet Lily Collin's Emily Cooper.
Emily's boss, who was fluent in French. clinched an attachment stint in Paris as a marketing consultant. As life would have it, she realised she was pregnant and the posting had to go to someone else, and that someone else became Emily. This is where the show stops making sense, but for the purpose of my rant let's carry on. In a conversation with her boyfriend before she left, it was revealed that she didn't speak French.
Right... we can almost see how this is going down
The scene cuts to Emily landing in Paris and being shown to her grand apartment at the heart of Paris, complete with a window with a view, but not before commenting that the French calling their ground floor literally "Ground Floor" and the second floor "First floor" was "weird". You want to know something weirder? Hotels in China have no fourth storey, but please go on.
And here, Emily's journey begins.
So does ours, in charting out how many boxes Emily ticks in the list of traits an unlikable female character has. Ready? Here goes:
1. Incompetent, Unprofessional, Full of Herself
On her first day at work, she was greeted in French by her superior, Sylvie Grateau, at Savoir (the French company she was attached to). It was revealed that she knew no French beyond "Bonjour".
Let's first ignore the fact that it is highly unrealistic that her original company at Chicago could send an employee to Savoir, and expect her to value-add to its marketing campaign. while putting in zero resources to prep Emily in basic French (don't get me started on how basic French is not even sufficient, she would minimally have to be well-versed in professional French, marketing lungo).
Oh but they could prepare a luxurious apartment for her, are they sending her there for a holiday or for work?
Imagine for a moment you are Emily. Your company in Chicago has already set you up for this awkward situation. You sit in a conference room around coworkers who barely understand you, your social media counterpart does not speak a word of English, and everyone avoids you at lunch. What do you do about that? Any normal person would quickly ask for the company's relevant files and readings, translate it all, understand its existing social media strategy, find out what works and what hasn't, THEN come back to the table to force your (at least informed by now) opinions on everyone. No?
Emily jumps straight to the last step, doing it all in English no less. I can't say I blame her colleagues at Savoir for disliking her.
I do concede that what they did to her on the second day, calling her a country bumpkin in French and all, was extremely unprofessional and crossed the boundary into workplace discrimination. And I am not saying she should still try to get into the good books of and befriend bullies like that. However, her best option at that point would be to work harder on her French, actually bring value to the company, and convince them to at least respect her work even if they didn't like each other on a personal level. But was that what she did? No, in all of the 10 episodes she was as bad at French from start till end.
The second thing was that Emily was posted to Savoir as a social media marketing strategist. It was literally the point of the show, yet we were never shown exactly how her social media skills were good, never mind better than that of a marketing company.
Your face is in 80% of that picture, what view?
...Right
What is "Everything is Coming Up Roses"? And is that an exclamation mark in your hashtag?
I've seen normal humans post less basic pictures than her, never mind influencers. She has 20,000 followers with that kind of content? How? In the realm of social media marketing, standing out is key, good luck when
this,
this and
this are the players in the game.
And to think she soared in popularity among her French colleagues when first lady Brigitt Macron retweeted her (rather distasteful) photo caption criticising the French language (more on this later). Is that how things work? Ho Ching reposts 1200 times a day on Facebook. Even I have been reposted by Xiaxue before. Funny we aren't seeing a surge in social media superstars in Singapore at this rate.
The thing that really got me was the segment in which Emily schools a major client, the disgusting Antoine Lambert, how using a naked woman to promote a perfume was wrong. She (wrongly) brings up the metoo movement and in the heat of the debate, she suggests to Anotoine to set up a poll on Twitter: "Sexy or Sexist", to "get a conversation going" she says.
By the way, the metoo movement is NOT about nudity in advertising.
The reason I am appalled is by the suggestion to do a poll. Now I am no marketing expert, but the conversation of sexual objectification of women in media has been discussed to death already. We've had this conversation since the 20th century. If you even have the slightest doubt your marketing campaign will sit well with your customer base, just don't do it. What's the point of the poll?
I'll tell you what happens- your company's twitter will turn into a cesspit of incels defending their right to see naked women, right wing nutjobs discussing how the company will "go woke, get broke", left wing radicals attempting to cancel the firm, ALL FIGHTING WITH EACH OTHER, and probably your marketing employees getting harrassed. Like, you sure you use Twitter Emily?
She’s not wrong that controversy will generate traffic, engagement. But it’s fatally flawed to believe “all publicity is good publicity”. One cannot just think in terms of traffic, you need to think in terms of sales and what this means to future clients. Of the people participating in the polls, how many will take a genuine interest in the perfume, the actual product being sold? Will they even know you are selling a perfume or will the controversy detract from its point?
How many potential clients will watch this shit show and go “wow, I really want to participate in this type of controversy, let’s engage Savoir for marketing in future!” Clients care about their branding and image more than social media traffic. If anything. potential clients will cast doubt on your marketing team's capability, because the fact that you need to default to your twitter followers to determine if objectifying women in marketing was acceptable in today's climate shows that your marketing team was hiding under a rock and not doing their job. It will cost your firm in the long run.
If I were Emily, I would have just ended the conversation after I cautioned Antoine the first time and he refused to heed the advice, insisting that a woman baring her arse on camera for perfume was "sexy". He made his bed, he can lie in it. You already warned him Emily. If things go south with the poll (which it definitely will), read this: THAT'S ON YOU, BRUH, BECAUSE YOU SUGGESTED IT. Survival instincts, please?
2. Rude and obnoxious
Despite all her gaga-ing about how beautiful Paris is, she's extremely disrespectful towards French culture.
We have covered the part about Emily bragging about how the American perspective was superior and how they should all listen to her (in English) without making the effort to understand how Savoir worked.
Throughout the series we are treated to Emily ridiculing how the French made their steak, their language, their city layout, and objectifying their men.
The post which was retweeted by Brigitt Macron was this (presumably cross-posted from Instagram to Emily's Twitter, which was how the First Lady was able to retweet it). Prior to the tweet, she was confused as to why the vagina was referred to in French as "la vagin" (a masculine term) as opposed to "le vagin" (a feminine term). Nobody could give her a satifactory answer and let's face it, I'm not surprised.
Yeah...
It's like if a Chinese speaker came to ask me why aircraft and ships were referred to as "her" in the English language, I wouldn't be able to answer either. And while there was nothing wrong with Emily questioning what she didn't know, you can't fault her boss for not answering the question seriously because she was there to manage Emily, not to be a linguistic expert. (Let's face it, Emily wouldn't be able to appreciate it anyway) And Emily could always google in her free time if she was geuinely curious, but what did she do?
Whoa, that escalated quickly Emily! Totally not inviting a "Well go right back to America where you belong then why work for me?" and a phone call from the CEO back to your headquarters in Chicago *rolls eyes*
And we spoke about Emily's lack of survival instincts so instead of just stopping her nonsense yesterday already, she followed up with this social media post "The vagina is not male!" complete with the exclamation mark to properly express her rage at the semantics of someone else's language, which she was never interested to learn since day one anyway. And Brigitt Macron, First Lady of France, retweeted that she agreed.
Let's bear in mind that the French are well-known for their pride in their language and culture. Even I would be hard pressed to find a day when Ho Ching (wife of our Prime Minister) would be complicit with a foreigner in criticising Singlish in front of millions of Singaporeans, and compared to France WE are the country that is more welcoming to foreign cultures!
What can I say? Everything exists to serve Emily's story, which brings me to Point 3:
3. World has to revolve around her
We mentioned that Emily could not speak basic conversational French from Episode 1 to 10. Not to worry, the characters start speaking English to accomodate her. But I promise it gets more illogical.
In the Ringarde episode, Savoir meets a potential client, couture designer Pierre Cadault. Cadault prides himself in being a creator of fine art pieces in the form of fashion.
Emily: *stammering* I er, am er, beyond honoured, I mean being here, it's just faBuLoUs! Your clothes are like a confectionery, I could eat your work!"
When Cadault he saw Emily's Effiel Tower keychain, he exploded in "RINGARDE" and stormed off, essentially calling Emily basic.
Actually, I'm inclined to think it wasn't the keychain but the comparison of his work to confectionery.
Come on, as a viewer I truly struggle to think otherwise about a character who had so far reduced French culture to nothing but Effiel Tower, romance (actually, worse, fuckable men), and croissants. However, the go-getter Emily went all out to try and prove Cadault wrong. How, you ask?
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Hold up, WHAT? Emily's logic, while justifying the keychain, was that she saw the characters in Gossip Girl decked in expensive designer dresses but couldn't afford anything but the Effiel Tower keychain. That it was not that basics like her didn't respect designers but they worshipped designers so much that they "spent all they saved on a dumb accessory just to feel they were on their runway". And arrogantly concluded that designers needed them.
Let's disregard the obvious fact that a "charm from an outlet mall" costs, I give you at most 20 Euros. It is not even on the same x and y axis as a couture dress, let alone the same sheet of graph paper. Let's also disregard that Emily had said nothing intelligent about any of Cadault's work thus far, yet claimed to respect him. Can you please, please, Emily, don't insult an accomplished designer by suggesting you got a completely unrelated 20 Euro keychain because you respected his work? Because you watched a dumbed down, commercialised sitcom on American TV that had absolutely nothing to do with his designs?
"I love Hermes Birkin handbags, I cannot tell you why, or anything I know about the work that goes behind the bags' creation, but I spent my savings on a 50 Baht Louis Vuitton T-shirt from a Thailand street market just so that I feel like I am carrying one of your masterpieces." WTF???
And Pierre Cadault signed her after she gave that completely mindblowing explanation. What's the logic in any of this?
4. Has no loyalty to her female friends
We all hate girls like these don't we. Always saying they were nOt lIke tHe OthEr GirlS, insulting other girls (usually for their looks) for breadcrumbs of attention from fuckboys. Two-faced to their female friends, and end up with no bridesmaids at their wedding and so had to look for the only two other girls willing to hang around her who also badmouth her behind her back?
Perhaps the producers know Emily is unlikable enough and thankfully didn't make her any of those things but she sure as hell slept with her friend Camillie's boyfriend.
Now, Camillie was a nice lady. She met Emily when the latter was struggling to order roses at a street stall. She spoke English. She brought Emily to meet her family in Champagne (btw the pedo Emily shagged Camillie's 17 year old brother while there) and gave her a business opportunity with her family's champagne business. She even trusted Emily enough to let her orbit her boyfriend Gabriel constantly.
If I were Emily, I'd be thanking the heavens that I met such a nice friend in a foreign land even when I stubbornly refused to learn their language and stepped on the toes of everyone I met!
How did Emily repay her? When Gabriel was going to be posted to Normandy and he did it without telling Camillie, and Camillie was visibly upset that she was forced to choose between uprooting her life in Paris and breaking up with Gabriel, Emily acted surprised for like 10 seconds and told Camillie she was sorry... then continued hanging out with Gabriel alone, telling him she was happy for him- basically a 180 degree turn from the feigned sympathy she had for her friend.
She then slept with him- mind you, at this point she was still seeing another man related to her fashion designer client.
Oh of course, of course you did that Emily. All this while paying lip service to "Oh he's Camillie boyfriend blah blah blah" when Mindy egged you on to sleep with him, while hovering over him alone and talking affectionately to him constantly and sleeping with him before your friend had even officially broken up with him.
And she had the cheek to say, while on this bed with Gabriel, that "I don't think I should see you again because we'd both be hurting someone we deeply care about." It's okay Emily, you both won't be hurting anyone you cared about.
Media just cannot stop glorifying girls who pretend to go all "oh naked advertisement badddddd feminism me too" when it's time for them to look good and then turn around and betray their girlfriends in this manner. We see this in Chinese dramas all the time. The virtuous sweet Green Tea Bitch female lead falls in love with Emperor (read: a married man) and the jealous Empress who used to be her best friend tries to poison her. Emperor wants to protect female lead cos he's the devoted lover in TrUe LoVe with the female lead, abusing his Empress in all ways whether she deserved it or not, and the audience is supposed to fan-moron over how sweet their love is.
Nobody cares to put themselves in the shoes of the women who had their husband stolen, who is hurting over their friend and husband's collective betrayal. And if this is set in Ancient China, it also means this woman is either trapped and forced to watch the betrayal in her own home everyday, or it means she is cast out by the husband onto the streets and will be unable to fend for herself, because in those days, a divorce meant the end for women. It occurs to nobody that these women had a good reason to be jealous, they are just painted as evil and psycho if they didn't enable the cheating lovebirds at their own expense. It occurs to nobody that if the man can cheat WITH the female lead he absolutely will cheat ON her one day.
I have an advertisement campaign you can work on for customers in China Emily, here it is. Just take the selfie and copy and paste the Chinese caption, no need to ask what it means.
#男的渣女的茶天生一对
My heart goes out for poor Camillie.
The supporting characters are horrible too.
Her boss slept with a married major client. Married major client hit on Emily constantly and delivered lingerie to her workdesk and told her "I wAnT yOu tO feEl SeXy". Yes, the disgusting fils de pute Antoine Lambert, who was behind the naked arse perfume ad, cheating on his wife with Emily's boss and said the twitter poll was a good idea.
This is the precise moment Emily should be calling out her pig (French expression for the me too movement), and she didn't do it. And when her boss told her to stay away from him (notwithstanding the fact that the boss herself was his mistress) to work on the menopause ad, she should have listened to the boss and kissed her feet in gratitude because she was protecting Emily indirectly. Ladies out there, please don't trust a creepy old man over the wisdom of an older woman, okay?
We also mentioned that the colleagues were bullying Emily at the start, ostracising her, calling her le plouc (country bumpkin) to her face. The owner was not much better off, insulting American food, making fun of their obesity rates and telling Emily she had much to learn from them but not vice versa.
Well then, why create an opening in your firm to be filled by an American? I know they are French, I have worked with French people before but surely this is TOO RUDE? Does the producer have something against French people?
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Did anyone actually like this series? Or Emily?
Because having watched it once, it has already disgusted all of my senses in every way possible. There's a Season 2 they say? I suggest you don't bother. Lucifer has six seasons because the fans couldn't get enough of it. You are coming up with a second season to redeem yourself. I shall simply suggest you start over with a completely different show- that's my marketing strategy to you.
Verdict: Much Ringarde.
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