ANDWednesday morning, while I was trying to decide whether to make a Yoga video with Adrienne or eat the rest of the whipped cream, my mother called to tell me the news. “Emily in Paris has just been nominated for a Golden Globe!” she said.
“What? For which category?” I said. I’m a writer on the show. I tried to avoid reading your reviews, but I don’t live under a rock. It never occurred to me that our show would be nominated.
“For the best so much,” said my mother. We haven’t embraced since 2019. She gets her second vaccine in two weeks. Maybe the first one messed with your head.
“Best comedy series? Are you sure? “I drink a spoonful of whipped cream.
“Yes, Deb, I’m sure. I’m watching it on TV right now. “
“Uh. Weird.” I Google twice to be sure.
Like Emily, I am an ex-American expatriate who lived in Paris (as a photojournalist from 1988 to 1992) and also a former pharmaceutical brand marketer: a job I took on after being sexually harassed in my journalism work (by a man who Trump just forgave, but I digress) when I was a single mom trying to get two kids into college. Emily’s vaginal ring mark manifest? Cut and pasted from the one I wrote for my marketing job. “What vagin is that masculine?“I made that up too. As for Emily’s many gaffes? Let’s just say that during my first month in Paris, when I was a 22-year-old naive having dinner with my photojournalism colleagues, and one of them asked if I wanted more food, I replied: “Non, merci. Je suis pleine.”Which does not mean“ No, thanks, I’m full ”, but“ No, thanks. I’m Pregnant.”
Did I take the criticism of the show personally? Clear. Who would not like? But neither. Emily in Paris aired a few months after I spent June and July marching for racial justice through the streets of New York with my children. I could definitely see how a show about a white American selling luxury whiteness, in a pre-pandemic Paris free of its vibrant African and Muslim communities, could irritate. Our program also aired shortly after I read Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste and swallowed Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You, a work of absolute genius about the consequences of rape. “This show,” he said to everyone who wanted to hear, “deserves to win all the awards.”
When that didn’t happen, I was shocked. I May Destroy You was not just my favorite program of 2020. It is my favorite program of all time. He takes the complicated issue of rape – I’m a sexual assault survivor myself – and infuses it with heart, humor, emotion and a story so well constructed that I had to watch it twice, just to understand how Coel did it.
Now, am I excited that Emily in Paris was nominated? Yes of course. I have never been even remotely close to seeing a Golden Globe statue up close, let alone being nominated for one. But this excitement is now unfortunately tempered by my anger at Coel’s contempt. That I Can Destroy You didn’t get a nod to the Golden Globes it’s not just wrong, it’s what’s wrong with everything.
See my friend Deb Dugan, the first female president and CEO of the Recording Academy. She was hired to deal with, among other things, corruption, corruption, sexism and the continuing problem of #grammyssowhite. When Deb started doing this – when she actually started trying to clean the house at the Recording Academy and had to file her own sexual harassment complaint while doing so – she was fired.
Consider all the Hollywood writer’s rooms. A 2017 report by Color of Change found that 91% of showrunners are white and 80% are men.
See recent headlines. That a white woman who invaded the Capitol was allowed to go on vacation to Mexico while a nine-year-old black girl was sprayed with pepper spray by the police, for the crime of asking for her father – “You are acting like a child! ”The police said to her, and she replied,“ I am a child! ” – tells you everything you need to know about systemic racism in America.
But my fury is not just about race. Or even about racial representation in art. Yes, we need art that reflects all of our colors, not just some. But we also need to reward programs (and songs and films and plays and musicals) that deserve them, no matter the skin color of their creators. Is Hamilton great because Lin-Manuel Miranda is Puerto Rican? No. It’s great because it hits. Likewise, how anyone can watch I May Destroy You and not call it a brilliant work of art or Michaela Coel’s genius is beyond my ability to understand how these decisions are made.