Hitting the big screen during the height of the ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ epidemic, The Devil Wears Prada was released in 2006 as an adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s debut novel of the same name.
The blockbuster film starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway quickly gained a cult following owing to its relatable (and troubling, though this aspect is often overlooked) depiction of womanhood.
In recent months, The Devil Wears Prada has also been adapted for the stage and is currently running in London’s Westend at the Dominion Theatre under a creative team led by no other than Sir Elton John.
I took a trip there yesterday with my Mum to see what it was all about.
So, what is it all about?…
The Devil Wears Prada takes audiences behind the scenes of the cut-throat fashion industry, following the journey of a young aspiring journalist, Andy Sachs, who lands a job as the assistant to the formidable editor-in-chief of a prestigious fashion magazine, Miranda Priestly.
A weird mix of feminism and, well, anti-feminism, on the one hand, The Devil Wears Prada has proven to be one of the greatest depictions of female empowerment around, through which the lead character, Miranda Priestley, is someone to whom everyone bows down. The power is all hers. On the other hand, however, the film serves to uphold harmful stereotypes relating to a woman’s place in society…
Know your place.
Makeup and diets, cosmetics and designer handbags, shoes and clothes are sold to and bought by women for the sole purpose of boosting the very thing that is responsible for humanity’s downfall, the ego. In this respect, the Devil doesn’t wear Prada so much as the Devil is Prada.
But who are you?…
We all put a mask on, some of us more than others. Presenting to the world as a ‘better’, more enhanced version of ourselves, we cover up our spots with concealer and airbrush our cellulite away, turning ourselves into someone else at the click of a button.
Letting unsuspecting minds remain unsuspecting, ‘This is me, unedited’, we tell the world, believing that our worth can be sought from the opinion of strangers.
‘How many likes did you get on your recent, though? That’s the real measure of your happiness.’
If your happiness is measured based on how popular you are in the eyes of people you’ve never even met, then it’s superficial, for the real measures of happiness are based on who you are as a person, not on how well you can be a depiction of the ‘perfect’ model of capitalism.
With the weight of the world resting on your shoulders and no way to lessen the load, some people are pushed to breaking point.
Unlike men whose suitability for a job is judged on their qualifications and ability to perform the job role, and asking what they will change as the new face of the company is done in a purely professional capacity, a woman’s suitability is determined more so on what she looks like, with the ‘new face’ of the company a question to be taken literally. ‘We want you to adopt a new face.’
Why is the value she holds determined by the value he places on her body?…
For a film about the unrealistic beauty standards that are imposed upon women, ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ is an apt name.
Discussing themes relating to the unrealistic expectations that are put on women throughout, the film explores very well the pressure that the fashion world imposes upon all those who are a part of it. What it fails to do, however, is seek to correct the narrative that is pushed on us all regarding thinness equalling success…
While written with a humorous intent to make the audience laugh, without risking being called a ‘snowflake’ here, I couldn’t help but feel slightly uncomfortable by the references made towards unhealthy (undoubtedly), and disordered (highly probably) eating habits.
The fact is that to talk about not eating as a joke, or if you’re feeling weak, eating a cube of cheese, ‘I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight’, is dangerous, not least insensitive to anyone who has had an eating disorder and understands the perils that it entails.
‘I told myself, take a chance, hire the smart, fat girl’, Miranda said of her new assistant, Andy. Andy is played by the, already slim, Anne Hathaway. I can’t help but question how Hathaway must have felt reading through the script knowing that she was cast as the ‘fat’ girl.
Whether said as a ‘joke’ or not, we shouldn’t be doing anything that can be (mis)interpreted as being an attempt to glamourise eating disorders, when eating disorders are the deadliest psychiatric illness in the world (Anorexia Nervosa claims the lives of one in four of sufferers who are not in treatment) …
By all means, talk about diet culture and unrealistic body expectations in women, because don’t we all know that they exist, but do so in a way that doesn’t contribute to the continued oppression of women.
Have the underlying moral of the story be about why size doesn’t matter and, while doing so, think about how much money you could save if you stopped handing over your wages to the people whose solutions are destined to fail…
Stop letting them profit from your self-loathing.
If diets worked, the diet industry (in the UK alone) wouldn’t be raking in $2 billion a year, for Slimming World and the like would all cease to be in business.
The reason why diets don’t work is because they are designed to be that way by power-hungry men, the same men who are responsible for designing every billboard that tells us who we should be. They profit from our self-loathing and then berate us for being self-obsessed*.
*(Yes, we are ‘self-obsessed’, although not because we’re narcissistic, but because there’s no room for us to think about anything else. Society has made us this way)…
Alas, a woman who spends her days obsessing about the way she looks is one less woman obsessing about changing the world. She is one less threat to the system.
In other words, keep women subdued and the patriarchy will prevail.
What next for The Devil Wears Prada?
With a sequel reportedly in the works at Disney which is set to focus on the decline of printed magazines in line with our current times, one can only hope that the producers will also get in line with our current times in terms of shifting the narrative surrounding female expectations, too.
Portfolio of Hope 