‘Emily in Paris’ versus ‘Sex and the city’: Chaotic heroines explored

I know it’s bad etiquette to watch-and-text, but when it comes to Emily in Paris, I simply must have my phone fully charged and open to the group chat at all times. Where else am I to express my utter exasperation with the show’s heroine, Emily Cooper (Lily Collins)? I need a safe space to discuss her bonkers Instagram captions! To react in horror to her nonsensical decision-making! To share my disbelief at her ability to pull together outfits that are certifiably unhinged!

Suffice to say, Emily stirs up feelings of frustration in me that I truly didn’t know I was capable of. In fact, the only other time I can recall being quite so riled up by a TV heroine was when I first came across Sex and the City‘s Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker).

Darren Star, the creator of both shows, is to blame for these two glamorous agents of chaos. Carrie and Emily may have their differences, but both are famously polarizing amongst viewers; there is even an entire website dedicated to Carrie Bradshaw being the worst. 

Now, it’s worth noting that unlikable female characters are a good thing — we all love a flawed protagonist. After all, how dull would it be if all of our female characters were perfect beacons of moral purity? But Carrie and Emily are truly on another level. Their flaws are often downright painful to see in action. Selfish and oblivious, they skip onwards through their glamorous lives, wreaking absolute havoc and leaving a whole lot of mess in their wake.

As the fourth season of Emily in Paris lands on Netflix and a new generation discovers the joys of Sex and the City, group chats everywhere are filled with more infuriating Emily and Carrie content than ever — and what a joy it is! There has never been a better time to do a very thorough investigation into the anatomy of the Darren Star heroine.

Emily and Carrie: awful at relationships.

Lily Collins as Emily in “Emily in Paris.”
Credit: Netflix

Both are at their most narcissistic when it comes to romance. Carrie harbors an obsessive love for Big (Chris Noth) throughout all six seasons of Sex and the City — and two films! Her infatuation leads her to make some very bizarre decisions. Only a few months into their situationship, for instance, she stalks him and his mother to church, and then demands to know why he won’t commit to her. Later, when she is dating Aidan (John Corbett) and Big is married to Natasha (Bridget Moynahan), Carrie is all too eager to jump into an affair with her ex. She then spends years following Natasha around trying to get some kind of forgiveness in order to make herself feel better. In fact, decades later, Carrie is still hounding Natasha for closure in And Just Like That.

Then there’s Emily, who falls for hot chef Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) and proceeds to sleep with him even though he’s in a relationship with her friend, Camille (Camille Razat). Oh yeah, and she also sleeps with Camille’s 17-year-old brother. 

In the new season, Emily is just as messy in her relationships. Unable to choose between Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) and Gabriel, she simply keeps both on the line. At one party, she happily dances with Alfie and smiles as he tells her he’s all in — before she proceeds to fall back into Gabriel’s arms as soon as he appears on the scene.

The worst part of all of this is that Carrie and Emily act as though this is normal; they talk to their friends as though all of this cheating and uncertainty and poor communication is just another annoying part of dating. As the meme goes, is the accountability in the room with us?

Emily and Carrie: bad at friendships.

Lily Collins as Emily and Camille Razat as Camille in “Emily in Paris.”
Credit: Stephanie Branchu/ Netflix

While Emily and Carrie are off making awful relationship decisions, they are also, more often than not, neglecting their friends in the process. In fact, the tendency towards narcissism in friendships is perhaps the main defining trait of a Darren Star heroine. To put it bluntly, these girlies have enough “main character energy” to fill all of NYC and Paris combined.

A typical SATC brunch goes something like this. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) raises an issue she is having. Samantha (Kim Cattrall) replies with a saucy, but helpful anecdote. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) chimes in with a comment connecting Charlotte’s problem to the feminist plight. And Carrie leaps in to change the subject, bringing up some inconsequential thing Big said. Oh, and when her friends try to explain to her that she is in a toxic cycle with Big? Naturally, she doesn’t want to hear it.

Yet, she still expects her friends to offer to help her buy her apartment back from Aidan post-breakup. Remember the time Carrie shamelessly guilted Charlotte into handing over her engagement ring so she could afford the $30,000 down payment? .

Emily is also painfully self-obsessed in her friendships. Just take the latest season, where Emily tells her landlord that Gabriel, Camille, and Camille’s new girlfriend are all living together, thereby breaking the building’s rules, because she is sick of Camille living near her new boyfriend Gabriel. Very thoughtful move, Em! Emily’s selfishness even shines through in the small moments. Just take the moment she meets up with Camille’s friends to help track her down. Not only does she dash off from the meeting after receiving a text, she fails to pay for her iced tea. As Camille’s friends put it, “So rude.”

Carrie and Emily: inexplicably successful careerists.

Lily Collins as Emily and Thalia Besson as Genevieve in “Emily in Paris.”
Credit: Stephanie Branchu / Netflix

Perhaps another reason that Carrie and Emily are so very infuriating is that they are somehow revered in their chosen fields, despite the fact that they both kind of suck at their jobs. 

Carrie is a writer in New York City who lives a very comfortable, Manolo Blahnik-filled life writing (checks notes) one column a week about her dating life. Of course, every now and then, she takes on some freelance work for little magazines like Vogue. (Every freelance writer knows the Carrie Bradshaw lore that she was paid $4 a word for this work, which she even successfully negotiated to $4.50.) Oh, and she has a minor breakdown when (gasp) her editor… edits her work. Her career goes from success to success when her column leads to a book deal. By And Just Like That, Carrie has transitioned to a career as the co-host of a podcast about sex and gender, even though it’s quite clear she doesn’t really know what podcasts actually are, and she feels too uncomfortable to actually, you know, discuss sex. 

Meanwhile, Emily is a social media marketer who, though she can’t post a good Instagram pic to save her life, finds herself working in Paris — despite speaking no French! Instead of actually learning some French and figuring out how to take a good picture for social media, she seems to spend most of her time at fancy lunches and stylish parties, before faking her way through pitch meetings where she very frequently makes up campaign ideas on the spot. 

Emily and Carrie: outrageous fashion icons.

Lily Collins in “Emily in Paris.”
Credit: Stephanie Branchu / Netflix

Naturally, these two heroines’ chaotic interiors are reflected in their inexplicable sartorial choices. We are talking wildly mismatched patterns, blindingly bright color combinations, and shapes that simply make no logical sense on a human body. 

Carrie wears a belt on her bare waist! A crochet pageboy hat! A pirate bandana! It’s an explosion of experimental NYC fashion. Meanwhile, Emily wears a coat covered in shoes! Mismatched houndstooth! A jacket covered in the literal Paris skyline! Oh, and in the fourth season, she comes to a masked ball dressed as the literal Hamburglar! She may be taking Paris by storm, but understated French chic she is not. After all, she is the vulgar American transplant — and her clothes show it. Sex and the City’s costume designer, the legendary Patricia Field, was a consultant on the first two seasons of Emily in Paris, which suggests they were eager to bring some of the bold fashions of Carrie Bradshaw into Emily Cooper’s wardrobe. When Field left the show after the second season, many fans noted that Emily’s outfits seemed even more outrageous and over-the-top than ever. Evidently, for a Darren Star leading lady, maximalism-verging-on-hideous is the name of the game. 

Carrie Bradshaw and Emily Cooper are both kind of the worst. But, honestly, I wouldn’t want it any other way. There’s a unique joy that comes from gasping in shock horror as they flagrantly cheat, lie, and manipulate — and there’s a mischievous kind of fun that comes from living vicariously through their bad decisions, while knowing we could never, ever be quite so absurd as they are. They may be messy, but no one is more fun to watch — and gossip about in a group chat — than a Darren Star heroine

Emily in Paris Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.