It should have been Emma in Paris – some frantic thoughts on One Day and dating a white person

I’m guessing you’re here because you’ve seen Netflix’s gut-wrenching retelling of One Day, a novel by David Nicholls previously adapted into a film with Anne Hathaway. The story (not a true one, I Googled) follows two friends over the course of 20 years and their relationship of yearning, resentment, and growth. Only this time, Emma Morley, the female lead, is a brown woman played expertly by Ambika Mod, pining after the devastatingly handsome Dexter Mayhew, played by Leo Woodall.

I found that the decision to cast Emma as a brown woman really effective because of the subtext it adds, even if it never really addresses it. Dexter’s inability to choose Emma in their youth adds a layer of complexity – is it because she is not the blonde-haired, blue-eyed slender (or any) white woman he is used to courting? Are their class and racial differences insurmountable as a romantic pair that they naturally fall into a friendship? As a person of colour, race is something that plays on my mind a lot. I hate when they don’t address it at all in film and TV, especially where it definitely is likely to play a part irl (I enjoyed that in Sex Education, Eric calls Otis out for not seeing race). As an Indian woman, Emma’s entire heritage, her family, her upbringing is omitted from One Day. She simply orbits around the white men in her life (Dexter, Ian, the headteacher whose name escapes me). I understand that in the book, Emma is written as a white woman but I do think if the show’s creators are going to capitalise off optical diversity (loads of people will watch simply to see a brown lead), then they should at least do it justice and add details their audience want to see, in a meaningful way.

The only mention of Emma being different is administered through Dexter’s eyes. Emma is othered when Dexter asks if she doesn’t sleep with him due to religious reasons, and I’m reminded of all the white boys who’ve asked me something similar.

‘Afghanistan is a mess’ Emma says, inviting Dexter to comment on the war on terror but he finds political conversation ‘boring’, His privilege stops him from being engulfed by its importance and relevance, same of people who blithely ignore what’s happening in Palestine today.

I also would like to have seen the appeal of Dexter (other than the fact that he played by a gorgeous man) because I kind of only saw him as this wounded thing that needs to be taken care of. I have sympathy for him given that he is in mourning for his mum but I also wish he’d self-soothed a lot more or at least tried to seek help or therapy instead of causing destruction in his way. I guess that was his character arc. If I was his friend IRL, I would have kept it platonic and moving, supporting him only as a friend.

I do feel Emma acquiesces in some ways. Sure, she loved him in a schoolgirl way at first (writing poetry for him), but through their adolescence he doesn’t really do anything to win her over. She says she doesn’t want to be Dexter’s consolation but almost immediately concedes after that one conversation. I can’t help but feel her life in Paris would have been full of art and culture and a man who doesn’t dither for decades to make a move, hell she might have even been alive if she stayed in Paris. Dexter just doesn’t seem to me like her intellectual or emotional equal (maybe this isn’t a necessity for some??).

‘Afghanistan is a mess’ Emma says, inviting Dexter to comment on the ‘war on terror’, which should have been the main topic of conversation in 2002. He finds political conversation ‘boring’, replies Dexter. His privilege stops him from being engulfed by its importance and relevance, same of people who blithely ignore what’s happening in Palestine today. She says ‘it’s different for you’ and I think yes finally they’ll talk about the race thing and how as a racialised person it’s hard to separate yourself from the terrors inflicted on people in the global south, but it’s diverted into a conversation about fertility. I know One Day is not a political show and it might have even lost the audience’s focus if it did veer into it, but I couldn’t help but put myself in Emma’s shoes (isn’t that what representation is all about??) and how skeptical I would have been of it all.

I could not be with a man who doesn’t care about Afghanistan or Palestine, especially if he were white. As boyishly handsome Dexter is, and as gentle as he is with Emma, especially in the latter years, I could not say yes to a man like him. As a single woman looking to find a partner for the purpose of marriage, I am confronted with the question of racial preferences on the apps I use (Hinge and its Muslim equivalent Muzz). My faith settings are set to Muslims only but my race preferences are open to all, but I know my criteria is a bit wider if the person is white. Even among white converts, I have to consider how their families perceive our faith, if they are racist, if they are culturally insensitive, if I would have to bat away questions that make me feel othered. I’m reminded of a friend’s family barbecue in which one of their family friends, emboldened by alcohol, called me a Paki. Or how my white housemate called me coloured and makes culturally insensitive comments about race all the time. I want to close off any opportunities that put me in that place again, so I am extra vigilant of whiteness.

So I guess my assessment of Dexter is biased and maybe unfair because I can’t help but see it through the lens of a woman of colour who is easily agitated by the connotations of whiteness. So sue me, I guess.

And just one last thought to finish off – do culture creators know that interracial relationships don’t automatically mean one person definitely has to be white? lol.