Loyalty and Complicity in Emily in Paris

Original article posted on Red Letter Christians here

I’ve been in cancer treatment this year so I started a new pastime – watching shows. I had only watched two shows in my adult life before this: Suits and The Newsroom. I clearly have a thing for workplace dramas!

This time around, I loved Trying, Shrinking, and Stillwater (for me and my kids). They were all just one season or a few seasons though and cancer treatment is not short, so I circled back to re-watching my old favorite: Suits. My nurses knew what I would be watching during my treatments – always Suits.

The show is set in a high-powered law firm in NYC with all kinds of drama, office romance … and injustice. Their firm was all about defending corporate clients whether they were right or in the wrong. But the injustices that stood out most to me were the interpersonal dynamics – the relational level injustices – that took place among the main characters, a group of high-powered legal colleagues. I never noticed this side of the show when I watched it before, but it was like a flashing red light to me this time through. I loved seeing how my injustice radar has become better honed as I have learned more about the specific dynamics of injustice in the past decade.

There are lots of examples of how the scapegoat character, Louis, is mistreated, but one thing stood out to me: the weaponization of “loyalty.” When Louis tries to speak up for the right or do what he should, his colleagues constantly hammer him over the head with how important loyalty is. Their appeals to loyalty were used to manipulate. They were used to avoid accountability. They were used to coerce Louis to stay quiet or let something go. Maybe you have experienced that before?

It brought me right back to my church experience where I first learned to recognize spiritual abuse. After the dust had settled and most people had fled the dysfunctional, manipulative church, I was still talking to many who stayed. And I realized after these conversations that many of those who stayed had an overinflated view of the importance of loyalty. Loyalty is a good thing – we see that in Scripture. But it is not the BEST thing.

I came away from my abusive church experience with a firm conviction that love and truth are the cornerstones of healthy community. If you ask my children what God made them for, if any of my training has stuck, they will respond with “to love each other and tell the truth.” That parenting priority stems from this church setting where, as far as I can tell, all of the damage done to people, marriages, and our community stemmed from a lack of love and a lack of truth. Not that people weren’t telling the truth, but it was being sidelined in the name of “new seasons,” fear, and misplaced loyalty.

Those who hold loyalty as a highest good will end up sacrificing truth and love to uphold their images of themselves as loyal people, as the last ones left to turn out the lights, as the people who don’t just leave when things get hard. There’s a place for that – as long as it doesn’t require you to sacrifice loving the people around you or looking into what is really going on.

And those who hold loyalty over people’s heads … ooooo watch out. Check to make sure you’re not being manipulated. Make sure you’re not being coerced and going along with it because you aren’t really sure what in the world is going on and you’re just hoping the chaos of the storm will pass if you keep your head down. The narcissists rely on the loyalists. Be warned about the damage it can do to your own soul – and the community you are trying to help.

This happened in my church. It happens in workplaces. It happens in our families and friendships. It happens in our political spaces.

As much as we’re asked for loyalty in the name of the greater good, the greater good is always compromised when we deprioritize love and truth. This was illustrated so well in Suits with the implosion and collapse of the law firm that they all worked at and loved so much. And we have seen it in a million different forms around us.

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I finished all nine seasons of Suits just as I finished my twelfth round of weekly treatments and I have to admit, I got a little panicky when my oncologist said I should start a few more bonus rounds of treatment: Um, my show is over so I am no longer available for treatment. But alas treatment goes on and I landed on binging Emily in Paris, another workplace show (of course!) that reeled me in with lots and lots of French dialogue.

I was watching season 4 last week (spoiler alert!) and came across the most delightful portrayal of the exact justice-in-everyday-life stuff that we’re always talking about here. Emily’s friend and roommate, Mindy, is dating a wealthy young businessman Nico who she knew from her Swiss boarding school. Nico’s dad is publicly accused of abusive workplace practices soon after Mindy experiences them firsthand. Nico asks her to stand by him and his family publicly (loyalty!) to help them weather this storm.

Very calmly, Mindy refuses. She very kindly and clearly refused to be party to downplaying the allegations. She didn’t soft pedal. She didn’t try to appease. She didn’t shrink back and prioritize what she could lose if she stood up for the right. She didn’t agree to support them publicly on certain conditions – the only condition was that the abuse had to stop.

In not turning a blind eye to the wrong his father was doing; she also gave Nico the opportunity to take a second look. To shift out of ‘damage control mode’ into investigation mode. And ultimately the father is forced out of power within the company.

It was a great portrayal of the work of justice that happens behind closed doors. I started crying watching it when I thought of all the people in my old church’s orbit who had private misgivings but went along with what was happening anyway. They told me they knew what was happening was wrong, but they were too busy. They were too scared. They were too loyal. What a difference it would have made to me and so many others – and themselves – if they had been willing to speak up in those contexts and relationships where they had the most to lose.

What a difference it makes when we speak up in the contexts and relationships where we have the most to lose. And how wonderful to have a great portrayal and modeling of this in a show!