A SPRING IN YOUR STEP

BINGE WATCHING the TOTAL FANTASY of EMILY IN PARIS : BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES

I got hooked on Emily in Paris last year, and just binge watched the second season.  If anything the show is going a bit slow for me; I'm ready for the third season and don't want to wait.  Am I a fan? Well...

My first impression was that the writers were highly dependent on stereotypes of the French, especially the comparatively accepting attitude about sexuality outside of marriage compared to most Americans. That's why I'm posting this here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT.  There are just so very many Parisian Courtesans to cover, and though few modern women in this world live lives comparative to the Belle Epoch Courtesans, you can use the search feature in this blog to discover just how important France is to our subject. You can muse along with me. There isn't just lots of sex outside marriage and other seemingly committed relationships in this show, there is a blurring of the boundaries about what's personal and also what is unacceptable sexual harassment on the job.

Emily is a modern American girl, from Chicago, who also seems to have an unlimited budget for Paris fashion, some of it by my way of thinking quite unprofessional for the office. Also she seems to be happy most of the time and is constantly chronicling her adventures using her social media and personal cell phone to take photos proving it.  With that I figure she has little sense of privacy.

But OK, it's a fantasy that a girl who just graduated college working for an American marketing firm, could get this paid experiential or whatever it is she's doing at the firm, live in a small apartment - that she shares with the richest girl in China who is estranged from her family and busking - and afford all those clothes. Maybe they're gifts from some of the client companies?  She is cuteness unlimited, bopping around, and really making the most of her French experience. She manages to get on the nerves of her woman boss - a woman of a mysterious age but let's say she's 40-something and still hot. The work crew includes an openly gay black man who also wears loud colors like Emily does and also seems to otherwise be a stereotype of gay creatives. The office crew seem to go somewhere between agreeing with clients and influencing them to market, promote, and advertise their products and hone their reputations.  Meanwhile there are some conflicts because of Emily's American values. She never means to, being exuberant and helpful and sweet by nature, but she can ruffle feathers not knowing what the boundaries are, and she still seems to be surprised at how open about sexuality the French are.

Except that, when it comes to sex, Emily is an adventurer who doesn't know what to make of a client sending her sexy underwear as a suggestion or what to do since she just had the best sex of her life with a good woman friend's special man. So much forgiveness though! Can Emily chose between the friendship and what she wants and needs for herself?  And has this become the conflict of the show - to be a Parisian or remain an American when it comes to values?  Last season she had sex with a teenager not knowing he was so young. His mother found out and approved. It happens.

Her American boss has come to visit the office and is quickly appalled by the idea that an employee would have an affair with a client. Where does Emily stand on this? Does she accept it as a team player at the company or because she is a peon in the scheme of things?

I've had coworkers who were involved with the married boss. They were unmarried women who were not in relationships.  If everyone in the office didn't know it, they suspected it. And friends have fallen for someone at their job, jobs they intended to keep, and it was messy when it didn't work out. 

On the lighter side, I laughed out loud at some of the antics of this second season. I anticipate that at some point in the show Emily is going to be called back to America and she is not going to want to go. Don't we all want her to find true love?  Is refusing to have sex outside the relationship the test?  Would the chef she had great sex with ever consider opening a place in Chicago?

C 2022  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

MONICA LEWINSKY and AMERICAN CRIME STORY : SHE SAYS SHE'S GOING to NEED MORE THERAPY

DAILY MAIL MONICA LEWINSKY and AMERICAN CRIME STORY 

Monica has earned a place here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSOT and was an Honorary Mistress of the Month in March 2012 with the first post entitled Get Off The Back Of MONICA LEWINSKY Why Not Blame President Bill Clinton?

I love the American Crime Story television series, and it was inevitable that they would get around to Monica. Although I doubt that she had any desire to be thrust into the public discussion when she had her rendezvous with the President, she has done her best to get over the scandal and move ahead. 

If you use the search feature embedded in this Google Blogger, you can bring up various posts through time on Monica!

Missy

UP WITH ADULTERY ? AN ITALIAN WOMAN's MANIFESTO !

THE CUT : UP WITH ADULTERY - AN ITALIAN WOMAN's MANIFESTO by Maureen O'Conner.

This is an interview with author Guia Soncini who wrote the book 'I Mariti delle Altre."

Excerpt: Guia Soncini speaking

'When I was growing up, my mother also had friends who were the other woman. They had apartments that they waited for their men in.  You know the Mitterand thing from France, where he had a daughter from a sort of parallel marriage?  These women had that arrangement, and many famous Italians have, too.  In my book, I wrote about the director Vittorio De Sica, whose son wrote the father's adultery in his memoir; Marcello Mastroianni, who never divorced his wife despite having a daughter with Catherine Deneuve and a 22 year relationship with Anna Maria Tato; and Eugenio Scalfari, who founded and edited the newspaper I wrote for, La Repubblica, wrote about his double ménage in his autobiography; It's not cheating so much as polygamy that the law doesn't recognize.  At a certain point in the book, I ask, "Why do we think the cheater is the winner and the woman is the victim,?' ...

*Missy here - Editing notes are mine.

DIVINITY

 

THE LITERARY COURTESAN POET TULLIA D'ARAGONA - A BIOGAPHY OF ITALIAN WOMEN WRITERS

CHICAGO EDU : ITALIAN WOMEN WRITERS : TULIA D'ARAGONA    This biography follows Tullia's travels and residence in various cities of Italy and assorted companions.

In the following passage it is suggested that she may have given birth to a daughter:  On 10 March 1535, Penelope d'Aragona was born. Scholars disagree whether Penelope is Tullia's sister or daughter.  Although twenty to twenty-five years is a significant age difference between siblings it is not an entirely implausible gap.

This next passage suggests that she married and had a son:  On 8 January 1643, in Siena, d'Aragona married Silvestro Guicciardi or Ferrara, although nothing more is known of this relationship, except for a malicious comment by Agnolo Firenzuola that d'Aragona let her husband die of hunger.  The marriage was useful to d'Aragona, for later she used it to exempt herself from living in the neighborhood designated for prostitutes and from wearing apparel designed to differentiate them from, noblewomen.  From d' Aragona's will, preserved in the State Archives in Rome, we learn that she eventually had a son, named Celio, although given that he was young and iin the care of Pietro Chiocca in 1556, we do not know if Guicciardi was indeed his father.

NUNS, WIVES, and COURTESANS in the ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PERIOD - PROFESSE - MOGLIE - CORTIGIANA

ANNAS RENAISSANCE ITALIAN : EXCELLENT WRITING ON ITALIAN WOMEN 

I was so impressed with this brief but intelligent piece about women in Renaissance Italy that includes Tullia D'Aragona.  And very good pictures too.

Excerpt: The primary female role in the domestic sphere was expanded by notable women who, by virtue of Renaissance education and new society=al expectations, became art patrons, writers, orators, and simply women of intellect.  Wives assumed a background role in the sustenance of political stability for a spouse.  Women who entered the convent participated in Renaissance cultural novelties; some nuns, professe, received a full humanistic education.  Courtesans, cortigiana, enjoyed a glamourous lifestyle augmented by an education that enabled intellectual interactions in a secular rather than a religious domain.  Whether in marriage, in the convent, in court or in a position of service, each group of women were integral in shaping cultural and societal changes through the Italian Renaissance period.

FOUNTAIN BY THE VATICAN BASILICA

A SMATTERING OF BOOKS - TULLIA D'ARAGONA

I noticed that fairly recent books are about or include Tullia D'Aragona. I was unable to obtain these books from my library but I wanted to mention them.  Here they are...

Note that the painting used for this book cover was done in 1540 and the artist was Moretto Da Brescia.  It's of Tullia d'Aragona as the Biblical Salome.

GEORGEBRAZILLER : REVIEW OF BOOK  The book features 55 poems she wrote to men and their responsive letters back to her - also poetical. Book author is the well regarded Elizabeth Pallitto.

DID TALLIA USE HER POETRY TO SEDUCE? Quite Possibly!

This book is edited by Julia L. Hairston and is also well regarded.  Here is what one reviewer said: 'Hairston has constructed a full personal, cultural, and literary biography for d'Aragona, using newly discovered letters, archival material of other kinds, and contemporary theory about gender in women's writing.  Footnotes establish the intricacy of Tullia's intellectual networks and her courting of intellectuals in rhyme.'

This one by Monika Antes is in Italian and clearly identifies Tullia's mother as a Courtesan. Putting a description through a translator it says: 'Her literary salons in Rome was attended by literati, intellectuals, and prominent figures of contemporary society.  In 1535, she wrote her most famous work, the philosophical dialogue on the infinity of love, in which she distanced herself from classical thinkers by elaborating an original concept of Eros.'