JD Vance heaps praise on Emily in Paris: ‘The Shakespeare of our time’

Vice President JD Vance has revealed he is a fan of the Netflix romantic comedy series Emily in Paris, offering a “meta analysis” of its meaning and calling showrunner Darren Star “the Shakespeare of our time.”

The show, whose sixth and final season airs on Christmas Eve, stars Lily Collins as the titular junior marketing executive who arrives in the French capital to work in the fashion industry, getting into various personal and professional scrapes along the way.

In a video posted to TikTok and Instagram, the vice president explained that a friend has recently criticized it, prompting him to leap to the defense of what he called a “masterwork of American television.”

After describing the premise for the uninitiated, Vance said: “What it actually is, is a massive cultural criticism of millennial decision-making.

“She goes to Paris, and it’s obvious to everybody watching the show that she should end up with the French chef [Gabriel, played by Lucas Bravo].

“She should marry this guy. They should start a family. Whether in Paris or America, they should build a life together. That’s what they should be doing.”

He continued: “What both of them do is they make a series of absurd, sometimes hilarious, sometimes not particularly believable, mistakes where she ends up with a bunch of random people or focuses on her job.

“The fact that they keep on making atrocious decisions is kind of like the best bit of cultural commentary, I would say cultural criticism of my generation, the millennials. It is, at the risk of overstating it, the Shakespeare of our time.”

A political motive has already been suggested for Vance’s decision to weigh in, with The Daily Telegraph speculating he was seeking “to connect with younger, female voters before the U.S. election in 2028, in which he is expected to run for the Republican nomination.”

In an editorial for MS NOW, commentator Brian Moylan meanwhile argued that Vance, “just like so many men who try to control how women should and should not act in heterosexual relationships,” had missed the point.

“Narrative needs conflict,” Moylan argued in defense of the protagonist’s romantic entanglements, pointing to Shakespeare’s own As You Like It as a model example.

“No one wants to watch Emily staying up all night changing diapers in that tiny apartment, tending to the next generation of bourgeois Parisians while her husband slaves away in a restaurant. That’s not a commentary on spoiled millennials; that’s just romantic comedy 101.”

Emily in Paris has been a huge hit with viewers but attracted derision from critics over its frothy tone and baguettes-and-berets view of French culture.