Paper #2

Nicole Tai

Lydia Hearn Madden

EWRT 2 Honors

8 February 2011

Mutually Inclusive: Femininity and Relationships in The Devil Wears Prada

On the surface, The Devil Wears Prada (2006) appears to be nothing more than the

standard chick flick featuring girls in the fashion industry as vicious and identically dressed. The

movie’s heroine, Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is the working girl’s version of the unpopular

high school nerd, who, despite her plain appearance, lands a coveted job as assistant to Miranda

Priestly (Meryl Streep), the cold editor-in-chief of Runway. Andy is initially treated with disdain,

but earns respect over the course of the film for her outstanding performance and hard work—

after undergoing a complete fashion makeover to fit in. As one reviewer at NPR claims, the

movie’s plot structure resembles a modern-day version of Cinderella (Mondello).

Yet while it projects many common stereotypes associated with the fashion industry and

with women in the working world, The Devil Wears Prada takes on a more nuanced portrayal of

female gender roles than one might think. Neither Miranda nor Andy fit neatly into their

expected feminine TV roles: Miranda as the calculating, shrewish female executive—a caricature

of Second Wave feminists—or Andy as the bubble-headed, shallow fashion slave—a

representative of Third Wave feminism. Although Andy’s personality is the polar opposite of

Miranda’s, their problems and choices made throughout the course of the film are remarkably

similar, demonstrating that women share a common experience in struggling to find their own

places in the world. Miranda and Andy’s mutual acknowledgment at the end of the film could be

seen as an attempt at a synthesis between the two often competing brands of feminism.

Miranda’s character portrays many characteristics associated with the Second Wave

feminist. She holds a top-level career position as editor-in-chief of Runway and is considered the

most powerful figure in the fashion industry. “Her opinion is the only one that matters,”

Runway’s art director, Nigel, tells Andy at one point. She is also seen as cold and calculating by

other characters because she has none of the traditional “feminine” values that women are

expected to possess: kindness, sensitivity, submissiveness, an impulse to nurture others. Instead,

she assumes a commanding role more commonly associated with masculinity—she issues order

after order in the manner of an army general, is blunt and direct in her criticism, and expects

other people to bow down to her. She even appears to be the dominant one in her relationship

with her husband, as shown by the fact that she directs him to wait for her at a restaurant that she

chooses (through her first assistant Emily): “[C]all my ex-husband and remind him that the

parent-teacher conference is at Dalton tonight. Then call my husband, ask him to meet me for

dinner at that place I went to with Massimo.” Her authoritarian personality earns her the title of

“devil”—an implicit suggestion that her behavior is somehow unnatural for a woman. This

suggestion is further enforced by a remark that Andy makes to the (male) writer Christian

Thompson during their stay in Paris: “Okay, she’s tough, but if Miranda were a man, no one

would notice anything about her, except how great she is at her job.”

However, Miranda is not just a vehicle for Second Wave feminism; she is also a human

being who has problems of her own. Towards the end of the film, Miranda’s husband divorces

her. Miranda’s response is “I can just imagine what they’re going to write about me. ‘The

Dragon Lady, career-obsessed.’ ‘Snow Queen drives away another Mr. Priestly.’” The names

“Dragon Lady” and “Snow Queen” are both unflattering terms for a woman who is domineering

and cold—had Miranda been male, these traits would probably have been praised, and a wife

would not be expected to divorce a man who was so successful in his career. In addition,

Miranda cries and worries about the impact of the divorce on her twin daughters: “It’s just so

unfair to the girls. It’s just another disappointment… another letdown, another father figure

gone.” Miranda’s weakness redeems her in Andy’s eyes; to Andy, she is no longer the

emotionless “devil” in high heels. Critics might argue that Miranda’s attachment to her family

undermines her character’s feminist message by taking on a more traditional feminine role, but

her gesture could also be seen as a refusal to adhere to singular definitions of what constitutes as

empowering—as Suzanne Ferris and Mallory Young put it in their essay, “Chick flicks and chick

culture”, “The admission of girliness… doesn't mean the loss of female independence and

power” (Ferris and Young).

On the other hand, Andy Sachs begins the movie as a foil to Miranda’s personality. She

has no sense of fashion, according to Miranda, and wants to be a serious journalist, seeing

Runway as only a stepping-stone toward an ultimate goal of working at a publication like the

New Yorker. Also, she is nothing like the typical girls Miranda usually hires as assistants:

“stylish, slender… worships the magazine”. However, once she begins work at Runway, her

individuality seems to fade into the background: she is forced to conform to a stylish wardrobe in

order to be considered worthwhile in the eyes of her coworkers; she constantly has to give up

time with her friends and boyfriend in order to meet Miranda’s demands.

Furthermore, both women are clearly distinguished as having an identity separate from

their significant others; in an interesting reversal of gender roles, Andy’s boyfriend and

Miranda’s husband are portrayed as the needy partners who resent that their women prioritize

work above their relationships.

Works Cited

Mondello, Bob. "'The Devil Wears Prada' Wears Thin." All Things Considered. National Public

Radio: 30 Jun 2006. Radio. 7 Feb 2011.

Ferriss, Suzanne and Young, Mallory. "Chick flicks and chick culture." The Free Library 22

September 2007. 7 Feb 2011.