Ukraine’s culture minister has complained to Netflix about the portrayal of a character from Kyiv in the hit show “Emily in Paris.”
“We have a caricature image of a Ukrainian woman that is unacceptable. It is also insulting,” Oleksandr Tkachenko wrote in a Telegram post. “Is this how Ukrainians are seen abroad? They steal, want to get everything for free, be afraid of deportation? That should not be the case.”
The character in question is Petra, played by Daria Panchenko (who is from Ukraine), who fears deportation, shoplifts and — the horror! — is portrayed as having poor fashion sense.
“Emily in Paris” is about an ambitious marketing executive from Chicago who unexpectedly lands a job at a Paris firm that handles luxury brands.
This is not the first time the show has come under fire for its clichéd and stereotypical depictions. “The berets. Croissants … Quote a cliché about France and the French: you will find it in Emily in Paris,” wrote the website 20 Minutes when the show first appeared last year.
