Between Hard love, Following The Princess of Chicago and Christmas Flow, we are served side by side with romantic Christmas comedies on Netflix. We looked at the last one, since Christmas Flow, starring singer Tayc and actress Shirine Boutella, is Netflix’s first French Christmas romantic comedy. No sooner had it been released on November 17, 2021 than the series was already making people talk. The reason ? On Twitter, singer Tayc announced his release, summing it up in a surprising way, writing: “He’s Misogynist, She’s Feminist, all of them oppose them, and yet… Christmas starts TODAY folks! CHRISTMAS FLOW is OUT.” If the tweet has since been deleted, there have been concerns that Christmas Flow will romanticize a relationship between an ultra-sexist woman and man, who does not deserve it.
The pitch in more detail? Christmas Flow tells the story of Marcus, a rapper who hits the mark, but finds himself sued for sexist insults in one of his songs. Lila, for her part, is a journalist and runs, with her BFFs (Aloïse Sauvage and Marion Séclin), a feminist media, Les Simones, which needs a buyer as quickly as possible to survive. As much to tell you that Tayc’s tweet summed up very awkwardly Christmas Flow, a series ultimately rather pleasant to watch. We explain why.
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“Christmas Flow” does not avoid some clichés
Who says mainstream Christmas series usually says subtle cogs and stereotypes galore. We couldn’t escape it with Christmas Flow, created and written by Marianne Levy, Henri Debeurme and Victor Rodenbach. The representation of feminism, for example, deserved more nuance. Lila and her friends are indeed constantly angry feminists. In 2021, we would have done without …
Not to mention the idea of staging a racist rapper from working-class neighborhoods who is necessarily sexist, as if the rest of the music industry were spared from the problem. But we especially winced in front of the character of Camille Lou, who plays an influencer in a relationship with Marcus. Completely extravagant and foolish, the actress frankly deserved better.
A Netflix series that dusted off Christmas romance
Defects that we end up forgiving Christmas flow, which seizes the codes of the romcom to fulfill the specifications but shakes them to better modernize them. And if the denunciation of washing feminism is not done with the greatest subtlety in the world, it works. We want to help Lila and her BFFs face their new big (girl) boss frankly heavy, who tries to surf the activism to get money in the coffers.
Christmas Flow, which sometimes takes on the air of Love at first sight in Notting Hill or even Love Actually, is also refreshing thanks to its casting, to say the least, inclusive, the daring scriptwriting of the series being served by mostly racialized characters. On the one hand Marcus, an artist who grew up in the suburbs, faces a success that crushes him, victim of the entry of rap into the mainstream and disappointing those around him. Lila, she is faced with the difficulty of staying true to her convictions to save this project which is close to her heart and which has required so much energy to get there.
TO like Heart Plan, Christmas Flow does not claim to be a revolutionary production, and so much the better. By watching this series, we accept to be in front of yet another Christmas program that will not change the situation. Basically, Christmas romcoms are not made for that: to comfort us and free us from the guilt of loving honeyed feelings? They are modernized here, so what more could you ask for …