Explained: Why Ukraine's culture minister is objecting to Netflix's Emily In Paris Season 2 over an 'offensive' character

Ukraine’s culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko has issued a complaint to Netflix over its offensive stereotypical image of a Ukrainian character in its show Emily in Paris .

A little background story

The Netflix show follows a young American, played by Lily Collins, who travels to the French capital for work.

In the second instalment of the show, Emily is juggling with her personal life and the demands of her job in Paris – along with the cultural barriers that exist between herself and her Parisian colleagues. To smoothen her stay in Paris, Emily enrols herself for French classes. Here she meets Petra (Daria Panchenko), a Ukrainian, who later shoplifts during a trip to the local mall and encourages Emily to do the same. Petra is also portrayed to have a poor fashion sense and is afraid of being deported.

‘Unacceptable’ and ‘offensive’

Tkachenko has condemned the portrayal and described the caricature image of Petra as “insulting”.

“In Emily in Paris, we have a caricature image of a Ukrainian woman that is unacceptable. It is also insulting,” Mr Tkachenko wrote on Telegram. “Is that how Ukrainians are seen abroad?” he added.

Tkachenko has sent a letter to the streaming service complaining about the portrayal of Petra, reports BBC .

Tkachenko further with the popularisation of their culture, Europeans and Americans have heard about Ukrainian artists including the conductor Oksana Lyniv, tennis player Elina Svitolina, singer Jamala, designer Vita Kin.

“But this is probably not enough. And we will have to continue to fight stereotypes. Because if in the 90s and 2000s Ukrainian guys were portrayed mostly as gangsters, over time that has changed,” he mentioned .

Past mistakes

The first season too was criticised by the French for promoting stereotypical images of Paris and its residents.

According to BBC, the show portrayed the French as rude, and the ones who frequently cheated on their partners.

In the second season, the new character Alfie, a Brit, is shown to spend his time drinking in pubs and watching football.

Darren Star, the creator of the show, previously defended the first series, saying he was “not sorry for looking at Paris through a glamorous lens”. He stated that he created the series based on his own experiences while visiting the city.

Despite criticism, Emily In Paris continues to win over its viewers. The first season was streamed by 58 million households in its first four weeks, and was Netflix’s most popular comedy series of 2020, according to a  press release .