Emily In Paris’s Career Progression Isn’t The Only Thing Wrong With The Shows Portrayal of 20-Something Women

It’s been weeks since Emily In Paris premiered on our screens and despite the absolute hammering from critics, we still can’t stop talking about it. From the somewhat offensive French stereotypes to the fashion, the most recent sticking point is how old Emily really is.

After Lily Collin’s gave an interview to British Vogue where she said Emily was ‘fresh out of college’, and so ’22-ish’ (‘She’s gone to school for this, and she’s completed internships,’ she said), she was forced to backtrack on Instagram saying she ‘got her age wrong’. Because, after it was revealed that Lily thought Emily was 22, no one could quite believe it.

‘The circumstances for Emily in Paris keep getting more cuckoo,’ one Twitter user commented. ‘At 22 I was not being offered jobs in Paris. I was waking up at 6am to throw up after going out on a Tuesday night & panicking to try & find the dress pants I could wear to work that smelled the least like cigarettes.’

‘I love when very famous people who have never worked a 9-to-5 try to map out what a normal office career trajectory looks like, especially in gatekeeper industries,’ another joked. ‘i thought Emily was maybe 28.’

As did everyone else it seems, since no one online could quite fathom that a 22-year-old would not only be as successful as Emily to be sent to Paris in replacement of her much older boss and just so happen to save the day at every opportunity, but also be rich enough to own THOSE clothes and self-assured enough to move to France without being able to even speak the language (although as her French colleague told her in the show, that was more ignorant than arrogant).

But does anyone else remember when it was reported that Emily was 30 and no one could quite fathom that either? While her career success would make more sense, her wide-eyed naivety simply didn’t fit the tropes of a 30-year old woman either. Lily herself seemed to make the same judgement in her apology about getting Emily’s age wrong, commenting ‘You might not be 22, but you sure act like it sometimes.’

It’s clear then, that no one actually knows how old Emily is meant to be. In fact, it seems producers have put about as much thought into her age as they have the plot itself. What that does show, though, is how hilariously miscalculated Darren Star’s idea of a 20-something woman is.

The man who once defined a generation with Sex And The City, a show that while hugely problematic was known for more than one talking point about what it means to be a 30-year-old woman in the 90s, can’t seem to grasp what it’s really like to be on that millennial-gen Z cusp these days.

To him, the character of Emily would suggest that 20-something women are smart, but naïve. They’re driven, but arrogant – or again, ignorant – and they have Instagram followers handed to them on a plate just for posting a picture of kids running around a fountain (in reality, any 20-something knows you can’t just like… take pictures of random kids and post them on Instagram, surely?). They’re running-obsessed, croissant-loving, basic-bitch enthusiasts with men falling at their feet at the flicker of a distressed-eyelash. Or, we should say, at the over enthusiastic ramblings of a woman that is so bold she pitches her ideas everywhere she goes, be it parties or meetings with much older colleagues far more experienced than her. They also have enough money to afford high-fashion clothes despite all their student (and graduate, let’s remember) debt.

In reality, even if Emily was lucky enough to be sent to Paris for work, she’d be scrambling together the remnants of her last pay-cheque for a croque monsieur dinner, quietly contemplating her ideas in meetings where men talk over her and swiping the French version of Tinder happy to match even an Aldi-version of Gabriel. Or, are we just exposing ourselves here?

Either way, it’s fair to say that Emily’s career progression isn’t the only thing ludicrous about Darren Star’s portrayal of a 20-something woman, whether she’s on the low or high end of that spectrum.

Read More:

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