The American in Paris

De gustibus non est disputandum

“They’re real. And they’re spectacular.”

1.

It so happened that my wife was watching the TV show Emily in Paris around the same time that I was reading Henry James’ novel The American. At first, the similarities escaped me. Rather, in the glimpses of Emily, I gleaned something interesting about the interaction of stereotypes, of Americans and of Parisians, and thought that an exploration of those stereotypes might make for an interesting read. It was only then that I realized The American was about many of the same ideas.

Cue the expectations that this is going to be some rant on the difference in quality between James’ novel and the Netflix series, on the degeneration of high art into pop culture, or else some rant asking how anyone could ever be so snobbish as to posit that there might be qualitative differences at all.

Yes, there are qualitative differences between works of art. If I wanted this piece to be about those differences, I am sure that I could craft a compelling argument. However, I have no desire to do that. You should watch what you want to watch and read what you want to read and not think too deeply about it. Yes, you should try to develop something akin to taste, the facility that allows you to discern the differences between things of high quality and low. But you should also shut up about it for the most part. Your taste probably isn’t as interesting as you think it is. More importantly, taste is something that develops over time and flows from experience. It ought not be an a priori attempt at a personality.

The compelling discussion is less about the differences in aesthetic quality between the two works and more about how they depict slightly different versions of the same theme, that of an American grappling with their place in the world. More precisely, in looking at two depictions of Americans attempting to make their way through Parisian society, we may find something interesting about how our self-conceptions have evolved in the hundred or so years between the works.

2.

The first thing I noticed about Emily in Paris was Lilly Collins’ eyebrows. The second thing I noticed was the show’s color palette. The series opens with Emily running along Lake Michigan in a very normal pair of black leggings, but also a somewhat abnormal yellow plaid puffy jacket. This loud jacket, I believe, is meant to tell us something about Emily, as does the fact that her run ends abruptly, after her phone tells her to stop. ¹

The rest of the first episode sets up the show’s premise. Emily’s boss at her Chicago marketing agency is supposed to move to Paris to oversee the integration of a recently acquired French firm. But Emily’s boss finds out that she is pregnant and sends Emily in her stead.² Emily is junior and doesn’t speak French, so maybe she’s not the best person for this assignment. But Emily is plucky, so let the hijinks ensue.

Emily’s interesting fashion choices continue through the show. She shows up to her first day of work in Paris wearing a loud blouse emblazoned with the Eiffel Tower. Her new colleagues give her the up-and-down. She is the ugly American.

I was never quite sure whether the point is that Emily has bad taste in clothing or that Emily is dressing the way she thinks the French dress or Emily is dressing the way she wants to dress and doesn’t care what the French think. The confusion continues when you read the show’s press coverage, which ranges from “here’s where you can get these fabulous outfits,” to “this girl’s wardrobe is a hot mess.”

I won’t get too bogged down in the clothing. I mention it because Emily's wardrobe is one of the shows odd conceits, one of the ways the show projects its fish out of water theme. Another conceit is that just about every French man she encounters hits on her, while almost every French woman and some presumedly gay men, hold an open contempt for her. And then there is Emily as Type-A Millennial go-getter, whose optimized, striver lifestyle will invariably clash with the more bohemian and sensual French, who live by a certain… I don’t know what to call it.

Henry James’ novel The American deals with similar themes, though with a slightly different setup. Both works are centered on American protagonists dealing with French snobbery. The America tells the story of Christopher Newman, a wealthy American who made his fortune in various business pursuits and has come to Europe to take the Grand Tour and find a wife. He is subsequently introduced to Claire de Cintre, a young widow from an aristocratic French family, with whom he proceeds to fall in love. Much of the novel focuses on Newman’s attempt to win the approval, or at least the acquiescence, of Claire’s aristocratic family.

Where Emily is often met with open contempt, James’ protagonist is met with an array of blank stares and imperceptible faces. In The American, French aristocrats hide their wickedness behind a veil of impeccable manners. This difference is partly a function of period. As anyone who has read Jane Austen, or seen one of The Kingsman movies, should understand, manners were very important to a certain class of person. That said, the difference is also reflective of a certain change in the American character. I’ll come back to that.

3.

There are a lot of reactions to Emily in Paris that focus on the unreality of Emily’s life in Paris. Those reactions are accurate. Emily’s apartment is too big. Her clothes are too expensive. Her job responsibilities make no sense. You could imagine a more realistic depiction of expat life, one dealing with the modest dimensions of an actual chambre de bonne or with the frustrations of trying to open a French bank account. That might be a compelling show, but that is not this show. This show is grounded in unreality.

Much the same way that Stranger Things is less a show about the 1980s then it is a show about nostalgia for the 1980s, Emily in Paris is less about the ugly American than about the anxiety of being the ugly American. In this sense, we could pitch an endless series of Emily series: Emily in Homeroom. Emily in Freshman Dorm. Emily in Entry-Level Job. On and on until we get to Emily in Del Boca Vista.

To state the obvious, Emily in Paris is not so much about Paris as it is about Emily. Paris is the set. And French people doing stereotypical French things are part of the scenery. In this way, the show mirrors its protagonist. It's view of Paris and the Parisians is every bit as hackneyed as Emily’s view of them.

The American is not so different in this regard. Both works rely on a bit of narrative recursion. Henry James was an American literary upstart writing about Newman, a fictional American upstart trying find his way through the dark and shadowy salons of Parisian society. I am no Henry James scholar, but you could credibly view the novel’s plot as a stand-in for James efforts to wrestle a more realistic and modern style of writing from the form’s Romantic and Gothic predecessors.

Emily takes the literary recursion of The American and hypercharges it with a meta-level anxiety not yet present in The American.  Emily comes to Paris in the hopes that doing a good job there will win her a promotion back home. But her ability to do a good job is constantly frustrated by her inability to artfully negotiate French culture. Her goal then becomes fitting in with French culture, something she didn’t have a whole lot of interest in to begin with.

Newman is constantly aware that he does not fit in. And he is OK with this, at least ostensibly. Newman is not looking for acceptance per se. He is looking to win Claire’s hand in marriage and acceptance or at least tolerance is the path he must traverse. Newman comes to Paris to get something, because he believes that Paris has things he might want. Emily comes to Paris to make herself useful, because making herself useful is how she can get ahead. This distinction is subtle, but nonetheless important.

In many ways, Emily is comparable to the character of Claire’s brother, Valentin, with whom Newman forms a close friendship. Valentin is a sympathetic but ultimately tragic character, who describes his lot in life by comparing his situation to Newman’s own. He says:

"Ah, but your poverty was your capital. Being an American, it was impossible you should remain what you were born, and being born poor—do I understand it?—it was therefore inevitable that you should become rich. You were in a position that makes one's mouth water; you looked round you and saw a world full of things you had only to step up to and take hold of. When I was twenty, I looked around me and saw a world with everything ticketed 'Hands off!' and the deuce of it was that the ticket seemed meant only for me. I couldn't go into business, I couldn't make money, because I was a Bellegarde. I couldn't go into politics, because I was a Bellegarde—the Bellegardes don't recognize the Bonapartes. I couldn't go into literature, because I was a dunce. I couldn't marry a rich girl, because no Bellegarde had ever married a roturière, and it was not proper that I should begin. ³

If you look, you will find a lot of internet takes implying that young adults today are trapped in some kind of “late capitalist” Boomer gerontocracy that won’t cede control to the next and more virtuous generation. Look harder and there is another set of takes, many coming from the opposite side of the cultural-political divide, implying that young people have lost their resilience, become fragile, and are retreating towards authoritarian tendencies to make up for their lost will to power. There are valid points scattered here, but both world views are ultimately stymied by their incompleteness.

I find another idea more compelling. The thing that most characterizes young adults today is a complicated relationship with rules and with authority in general. Authority is not to be trusted, but neither can it be ignored. Leadership has atrophied, receding and leaving in its skeletal remains not much more than a set of confusing and constantly shifting rules.⁴

I am reminded of Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer. A movie of which I was less fond than many, but who’s central metaphor is nonetheless compelling. A train, organized front to back by rigid hierarchy, barreling through a climate impacted wasteland, running an endless loop. No destination. No great quest for salvation. No reason for being other than preservation of forward momentum and the status quo.

Perhaps the contemporary angst that so many experience is the feeling that we are all subject to some system whose purpose hasn’t any ultimate goal but mere compliance. This may be what people are reaching for when they deploy terms like “late capitalism” or conjure reactionary visions of lapsed virtue. As America has traveled the path from upstart to hegemon, we may now have more in common with Valentin than we do with Newman.

4.

I have claimed that Paris is merely a stand-in, but that’s not quite right. Paris is very important in one regard, which I will explain. But first, a quick aside.

I recently listened to an episode of Tyler Cowen’s podcast Conversations with Tyler , in which the titular conversation is with Thomas Piketty, the economist known for his work on income and wealth inequality. I am a fan of Conversations with Tyler, because Cowen, also an economist, has a rare ability to meet his interlocutors on their own terms, a skill that is becoming increasing rare. This is wholly unlike the talking head debates that litter our media landscape. These really are conversations.

In this episode, Cowen is trying to get a better understanding of the intellectual traditions that animate Piketty’s work and his world view, but Cowen is also challenging certain aspects of that world view. In particular, he is asking Piketty if there are there things outside of wealth and income, like cultural cache, which cannot be so easily redistributed because they are inegalitarian by nature.

To this end, Cowen asks the following question very early in the podcast:

COWEN: Let me ask you just a very specific question. It’s a common American perception of France, and maybe Paris in particular, that there are relatively few dimensions of status competition. One is supposed to dress a certain way or have particular habits of cultural consumption, and thus, along the dimension of cultural status, France and Paris are especially inegalitarian. Now, as someone from France and nearby Paris, just what’s your impression of that portrait of your own country? Is it misleading?

PIKETTY: Oh, you have to tell me that again. What exactly is the comparison you’re making between Paris and New York, for instance?

COWEN: If you compared Paris to New York, or even Paris to Berlin, an impression that many outsiders have is, there are relatively few dimensions of status competition. There’s the civil service, there’s a certain notion of doing well in business, the number of ways you could be expected to dress and be considered well dressed. That seems fairly circumscribed in Paris, but somewhere like Berlin — there seem to be many more open dimensions of status competition, or in New York City. Do you think, in this particular way, Parisian life is especially inegalitarian?

PIKETTY: I have never thought about this, but maybe you’re right. I have never heard of this before, but you’re saying the diversity of dress codes is less extensive in Paris than Berlin or New York.

I read this as Cowen asking, rather circuitously, if Parisians are as big snobs as Americans like to believe they are. Piketty’s response is telling. It is possible that he simply did not grok the question, but that does tend to be how snobbery works.

So, Paris is more than just a set. Paris is important in, because Parisians do snobbery better than anyone else, or at least that’s what us Americans like to believe. Consider the behavior that we noted earlier. What is snobbery, if not the sincere conviction that all of our women are more fabulous than you and all of our men can fuck you if they wish?⁵

Both Newman and Emily come up against this Parisian snobbery. Newman is repulsed by it, while Emily is partially seduced by it. Why? Partly for the reasons mentioned above. Newman comes into Paris brimming with confidence and possibility and is met with the stasis of the old world. Emily comes to Paris stuck in her own sort of stasis and ultimately finds a kind of liberation there.

It would be far too simple to say that the journey from Newman to Emily is a story of the gaining and then loss of American confidence. That character arc is way too hackneyed. And quite frankly it would be wrong. Emily does not lack for confidence. In fact, a key part of Emily’s seduction is her desire to overcome Parisian snobbery and the self-confidence that she ultimately will.

(Spoiler alert for a hundred-year-old novel) Newman is ultimately rejected by Claire’s family, which compels her to cloister herself in a convent. Through his friendship with Valentin, Newman comes into a piece of information that he believes he can use to pressure Claire’s family into releasing her. He confronts them, but they won’t budge. He briefly considers following through on his threat but decides simply to destroy the evidence and move on with his life. He feels happy in his decision until another character suggests that the family had called his bluff. The novel ends in ambiguity about whether Newman did the correct thing or not.

Emily, on the other hand, never fails to use any weapon at her disposal to advance her goals. It is exactly what makes her plucky. And you can imagine that if she ever did decide to take the high road, there would be no ambiguity about it. It would be a clear symbol of her virtue. Here is where we encounter the true paradox. Newman is man of uncertain action, but certain motivation. Emily is the opposite. She is wheel’s spinning without a definitive purpose. Or rather, her purpose is self-actualization. In that sense, she is an ideal character for this moment.

1. This is one of those areas where we could talk about qualitative differences if we were so inclined. Emily’s run ends at some random spot along Lake Michigan. What Type A go-getter would plan her run to end in the middle of her route instead of at a specific destination? The answer is likely that this was done with little regard for the character, but to lend the picturesque backdrop of the Chicago skyline to the scene.

2. As Emily later tells her boyfriend, her boss had a lot of “going away sex.” The boss is played by Grey’s Anatomy, and Drew Carey Show alum Kate Walsh. While it’s never quite flushed out, there is a hint of the idea that Emily’s appropriateness is a counterpoint to her hard-drinking, libertine Gen X boss.

3. James, Henry. The American [with Biographical Introduction] (p. 107). Neeland Media LLC. Kindle Edition.

4. I owe a large debt to a specific essay I read but neglected to properly bookmark. The essay makes the case that young people’s primary challenge today is being liked by the people in charge. If anyone is familiar with it, please let me know so I can credit it properly.

5. This could be why feelings about the French tend to gender coded and appreciation for French culture has traditionally been viewed as unmasculine.