If that sounds extreme, it might be. After all, the show is first and foremost a fictional romantic comedy, most likely not meant to be taken seriously. Yet it must also be contextualized by a long-held negative perception of American tourists across the world, particularly in Europe. 

“Emily in Paris” is a revealing look at how ethnocentrism manifests in not only the stereotypical American tourist, but in narrative structures within the entertainment industry. Even the premise of the show, where Emily comes to Paris only to offer her much-needed “American” perspective to a French marketing firm, implies that the French marketing firm is in desperate need of this “American” way in order to garner and maintain success.  

French critics lambasted the show for its stereotypical image of Paris, but also how blatantly oblivious the show’s main character Emily is to French cultural norms and practices. Emily comes to Paris not knowing how to speak French and throughout the series, it’s not clear whether she ever fully makes the effort to try. Instead, the show implies that Emily’s ignorance of the culture is a benefit to her experience in Paris. She solves problems, presented as different cultural challenges in the workplace and in her love life, in her own “American” way. 

It is not an exaggeration to say that, in many ways, Emily represents the microcosm of fears about U.S. tourism in European countries and throughout the world. At one point in the show, Emily is eating in a Parisian restaurant with her friend Mindy (played by actress Ashley Park). She is upset that her steak comes out too bloody, and insistently tells the waiter that he needs to send it back to be cooked correctly, despite the waiter telling her that it is cooked the way it is supposed to be. Throughout this conversation, Emily is confrontational and seemingly believes that her way is the best way. 

After demanding the waiter to return the dish for the second time, Emily tells Mindy that she can “educate” the chef on customer service. Mindy is skeptical, asking her if she really thinks she can change the entire French culture just by sending back her steak. 

To French critics, this was only one example of how Emily plays into the image of the stereotypical American tourist who believes she has the capability to transform France and French people for the better. 

The idea that American tourists are disrespectful and deliberately ignorant about cultures outside of their own is not an uncommon sentiment about the United States that is portrayed in entertainment. 

In the film “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga,” for example, Will Ferrell stars as Icelander Lars Erickssong who travels to Scotland for the Eurovision Song Contest. At one point Lars meets a group of American tourists and is irritated at their obnoxious mannerisms. He yells that Europe isn’t their “party town” to come and disrespect. 

In a YouTube video by French content creator Friendly Space Ninja, titled “Emily in Paris: Romanticizing Ignorance,” the channel dissects the many ways “Emily in Paris” promotes ethnocentrism disguised as quirkiness. The video has over 4 million views. Despite Emily’s obnoxious personality, Friendly Space Ninja argues that she is idolized as innovative and modern, while many of the French characters are repeatedly demeaned and infantilized. Emily becomes the “savior” of the company and she is celebrated for it. 

Cultural critic Noah Berlatsky writes it best when he connects the show to greater sentiments of American exceptionalism. 

“The city is an adventure for the guileless American,” he wrote. 

Berlatsky alludes to Paris as less of an actual city and more of a figment of the American imagination, ready for a quintessential American girl like Emily to shape it into existence. In terms of escapism, “Emily in Paris” is an entertaining watch, if only to laugh at Emily’s distinctly “American” antics. What’s more laughable, however, is the idea that American tourists’ entitlement and ignorance make them a benefit to the European countries they visit.

In response to the backlash from French critics, however, “Emily in Paris” producer Darren Star defended the television series against accusations that it was grossly misrepresentative of French culture. 

“The show is a love letter to Paris through the eyes of this American girl who has never been there,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “The first thing she is seeing is the clichés because it’s from her point of view.”

The fact that “Emily in Paris” is internationally available through Netflix means that its global reach could be an asset. According to the measurement company Nielsen, Netflix users watched more than 676 million minutes of “Emily in Paris” in the first week it was released. If Emily was culturally respectful, took the time to listen to her co-workers’ criticisms of her and actually learned the French language, she might be a more positive representation of American values. 

Such a depiction could be a much-needed step in changing former stereotypes of American tourists and improving international perceptions of American tourism, particularly by boosting the United States’ soft power, or the appeal of its global value and image, abroad. 

In an article for the Carnegie Endowment about Korean television dramas and their potential for South Korea’s cultural image, political science scholar Jenna Gibson connects television shows to greater diplomatic endeavors. She writes that television shows have the power to shape audience perceptions of the country that created those shows. 

“Soft power takes the appeal of soft resources — attractive pop culture fixtures like movie stars and pop icons, tourist attractions, and a welcoming environment for study abroad programs — and combines them to create, and solidify, new long-term changes in how people think about or interact with the country in question,” Gibson writes.

Television shows like “Emily in Paris” reinforce negative global images of the United States by repeating the same stereotypical American tourist trope for global and domestic audiences. It’s a cycle that is further perpetuated by prospective American tourists who take in media and entertainment like “Emily in Paris,” observe Emily solving her problems by being culturally disrespectful, and believe that that is the ideal they should aspire to. 

The tension between the making of “Emily in Paris” and its negative reception reveal the complicated relationship between entertainment and international affairs, where each has an impact on the other. A positive representation of U.S. tourism might just be the necessary image for the United States to project abroad. Unfortunately, “Emily in Paris” fails to contribute in any meaningful way. 

The post Emily in Politics: How Netflix’s Portrayal of the American Tourist Impacts the United States’ Image Abroad appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

This 14-year long plan was announced in 2016 by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and aims to reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependency on the oil industry. This plan includes several infrastructure, education and renewable energy projects, but by far the most ambitious project within this 2030 vision is the city of Neom. 

The city of Neom is the prince’s crown jewel and he expects that it will put the country on the international stage and not only manage to be the face of sustainable development, city building and living, but also a major hub for travel, tourism and transportation. 

The city is planned to be developed in the Tabuk province, which is located in the northwest part of the country. The area borders the Red Sea to the south, Jordan to the north and the Gulf of Aqaba to the west, across from which is Egypt’s Sinai peninsula. 

Construction has already begun after Neom’s announcement at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh on October 24, 2017. Neom Bay, which includes some resorts and luxury apartments, has already begun construction. Additionally, Neom Bay Airport was inaugurated in 2019 and will serve as a temporary hub until the main airport is finished. 

The project has been estimated to cost around $500 billion dollars and set to open the first stage by 2025 with the main attraction being The Line, a city shaped in a straight line that will run 170km from the coast towards the inland desert and would take up $200 billion from the budget. The city is planned to be a fully sustainable project that would rely 100% on renewable energies to run. The project would also, according to the Saudi government, create 380,000 jobs and increase its GDP by $48 billion. 

“Why should we sacrifice nature for the sake of development?” Prince Mohammed said in the televised announcement of The Line in January. “We need to transform the concept of a conventional city into that of a futuristic one.”

According to the Saudi government, The Line would consist of three different levels. On the ground floor there would be an uninterrupted pedestrian walkway with parks. The second level would have the services, stores and other commercial spaces. And the third level would be what is being called The Spine. 

In the same announcement made by bin Salman, he mentioned that the city is being built with a future population of one million people in mind. He further stated that all of these people would be just five minutes away from any good or service they would need for their day to day lives. 

The Neom project and more recently The Line have been heavily promoted online and are widely seeking additional foreign investment to help develop the city. Several YouTube advertisements and videos as well as viral explanatory videos have been key to the growing awareness of the project abroad. 

This ambitious project, however, has also raised some questions and concerns surrounding the true intentions behind its construction, as well as the ethical aspects that surround the city building as well as the country as a whole. 

One major controversy surrounding Neom is the current and future displacement of the Al-Huwaitat tribe. With around 20,000 people facing eviction and many Al-Huwaitat advocates being killed in the past years, the project has faced international backlash from several NGOs across the world. On April 13, 2020, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, one of the main advocates from the tribe, was killed by Saudi security forces in what they allege was self defence as Al-Huwaiti had fired first. Al-Huwaiti was a major critic of the Neom project, and many suspect that this could have been the reason for his death. 

“They have begun the process of removing people, beginning with surveying homes with the intent of removing people and deporting them from their land,” said Al-Huwaiti on a video recorded on the day of his death referring to the Saudi forces reaching his hometown. “They arrested anyone who said they’re against deportation, they don’t want to leave, they want to remain [in]their homes, that they don’t want money.”

Despite highlighting on the promotional website that the city will be built on “virgin land,” the testimonies from local tribes say otherwise. This is one of the major controversies that the Neom project faces, but with the recent announcement of The Line it seems like the Saudi government will continue the city’s development. 

This project is also very important for Saudi Arabia, not only due to its potential revenue in tourism and investment, but it will also allow for Saudi Arabia to assume strategic control of trade and transit within the region and beyond. 

The area where Neom will be developed is adjacent to the Strait of Tiran, where the Saudi administered islands of Tiran and Sanafir lie just off Egypt’s beach resort city Sharm El Sheikh on the Sinai peninsula. Alongside the plan to build the city, there is a plan to build a bridge connecting both countries by land. 

This bridge would completely change the way the region works as transporting goods through land from Egypt to Saudi Arabia would become possible, completely bypassing the current need to go through Israel. The bridge would also give Saudi Arabia control over the Strait as well, which could potentially increase the country’s influence over Asian exports to Israel. 

This would also help Saudi Arabia become one of the main hubs for travel and transportation, although the development would face fierce competition from neighbouring Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, two countries which have established themselves as powerhouses in the aviation industry with their major airlines Qatar Airways and Emirates respectively. 

The government wants to incentivise investors by establishing Neom as a free trade zone with its own tax and legal system, the latter supposedly being structured around more open and progressive ideals. This contrasts the strict Sharia law that prevails within the rest of the country which has been criticized for numerous human rights violations. This is something similar to what the UAE has already done with Dubai since 2006, where the Emirati government established an international court system to better appeal to the international investors. 

The project as a whole is Prince bin Salman’s attempt at creating a place that can serve as a major source of revenue and international influence for the Saudi government, and which can put the country on the international stage to not only help diversify the economy, but to also extend the reach of the Saudi influence within the global community. 

The positive, progressive and innovative prospects that the city is set to have, however, must be looked at through a critical lens, as the Crown Prince has proved that he may disregard locals or other people that stand in the way of his projects, even when they are within their right to protest the development. 

It remains to be seen if the Saudi government is up to the task of constructing this massive and ambitious project, and if they will be able to deliver on all of their sustainability promises while bettering their efforts to secure an ethical development. 

The post What is NEOM? Saudi Arabia’s $500 Billion Megacity Project appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

As foreign missions, Chinese media outlets would be subjected to strict regulations that apply to foreign consulates — such as reporting any real estate holdings — as the United States view these outlets as part of China’s “propaganda apparatus”. Just one day later, China expelled three American Wall Street Journal journalists for a WSJ opinion piece headlined “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia,” which Chinese officials deemed racist. 

A cascade of tit-for-tat retaliation followed. In March, the United States capped the number of Chinese citizens allowed to work for certain Chinese news outlets in the country. China responded by expelling more American journalists from China who work for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Things continued to drag on over the summer, where the U.S. imposed 90-day visa limits for Chinese journalists and labeled more Chinese media outlets as “foreign missions;” China hit back by requiring American news media organizations in their country to submit extensive information about their operations. 

Although China has never had an easy relationship with foreign journalists, rescinding reporters’ visas outright and canceling multiple visas from the same outlet is a largely unprecedented move. This deterioration of media relations comes at a critical time, too. In a rare joint open letter by WSJ, The Post and Times, the trio of print media giants labeled China’s move as “uniquely damaging and reckless” as the world struggles with COVID-19, a struggle that they wrote requires the free flow of trustworthy news and information. For example, during the first outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that originated in Wuhan, China reporting by American and foreign correspondents helped the world know what was going on at ground zero, even in the face of China’s lack of transparency. 

Of course, the escalation is not only about journalism; affected journalists in both countries have often been dubbed as “diplomatic pawns.” By imposing regulations on Chinese media outlets, Washington displays its firm stance against China’s perceived intelligence operations in the United States, brushing aside its earlier hesitations over meddling with the freedom of the press. To show an international and domestic audience that it can’t be bullied, China retaliated swiftly. What has followed is a classic scenario of the security dilemma, mirroring both countries’ aggression throughout their ongoing trade dispute.

There is no winner in this media stand-off, only who stands to lose more. Before the normalization of U.S.-China relations just four decades ago, limited contact and propaganda spawned cultural misunderstandings on both sides. Even after that initial introduction period, the magnitude of a free press and internet censorship in China has made it difficult to gain insight into the country. Though essential for their domestic policy of social control, China’s censorship makes it harder for the country to open up to a world that, at times, struggles to understand it. 

On the other hand, while reciprocity is a hallmark of the Trump administration’s “America First” foreign policy, it’s important to consider the long-term damage of this media war. America’s visa restrictions hurt Chinese journalists working for credible international media outlets, whose insights lend nuance in reporting on China that Americans might not be capable of providing — in the grand scheme of world politics, individual Chinese voices often go unheard. A lack of cultural understanding on both sides would only accelerate this great decoupling. 

The United States’ national security concerns regarding “propaganda outlets disguised as news agencies” are understandable, especially in the wider context of dismal U.S.-China relations and heightened competition. But what about China’s other channels of influence, such as social media? Most Americans recognize that state media is backed by China, but it’s harder to trace the tens of thousands of fake Twitter accounts hacked or created to spread Chinese propaganda. Instead, the United States’ foray into the press arena gave China grounds to mock the apparent hypocrisy: the U.S. cares about freedom of the press, yet its move seems contradictory. It’s also the perfect excuse for China to tighten its control on the foreign press, re-shaping an international narrative that it has long viewed as anti-China. 

Over the past month, China has shifted its focus to another Western country, harassing journalists in an all-too-similar scenario. After Australia called for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, relations between the two countries have deteriorated. China arrested an Australian citizen who worked as a high-profile anchor at Chinese state television and then forced out the last journalists working for Australian media in the country. Australia hasn’t been passive either, as Beijing accused it of raiding the homes of Chinese journalists in the country in June. 

In the West, journalism is regarded as an independent fourth estate to hold the government accountable, while in China it’s often manipulated as a mouthpiece for the government. But, despite the different understanding, only in recent times has China made such moves on journalists from multiple media outlets, and now multiple countries. The Australian episode shows that it’s no longer just a U.S.-China issue. China is shifting to an unusually hardline diplomatic stance as it strives to project an image of strength. 

On November 6, the Trump administration will have to decide whether or not it would renew visas for many Chinese journalists in the United States. The date coincides with the expiry date for the residence permits of a number of foreign journalists in China. It should be painfully clear by now that expelling journalists does nobody any good, given how essential information and news is: thus, let’s hope that both China and the United States can work together to form a more productive media relationship. The two can negotiate journalist visa quotas, for instance, setting an example of an easing of hostilities for the rest of the world. 

If the United States and China truly want to avoid escalating conflict, they ought not burn these critical bridges.

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