The movie “The Devil Wears Prada“, released in Brazil in 2006, tells the story of Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway), a recently graduated journalist who sees in the fashion magazine Runway, a temporary opportunity to leverage her career and achieve her dreams.
Even after fourteen years, the film still generates many debates about which characters can be considered “villains” in the plot. But, after all, have you ever stopped to think who is the real problem in this story?
- The abusive Miranda
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The boss Miranda Priestly, starring by the brilliant Meryl Streep – who certainly influences this dispute of love and hatred for the character – is described as extremely arrogant, demanding, impatient and intolerant. Both in the film and in the book, there are rare scenes in which Miranda demonstrates a minimally sympathetic behavior. Because of that, she maintains a completely impersonal relationship with most people, pushing away all the ones who would like to approach. Despite being always on the phone and being very requested, it’s possible to realize that, in fact, people only admire her professionally, but they don’t like the exactly person she is, which shows the consequences of being someone closed, uncompromising and workaholic.
Of course, all these aspects don’t take away her success. Seen as a reference in the fashion world, her exaggerated near-perfect demand contributes to the construction of her empire. However, nothing justifies the way she treats everyone around her. Through rudeness and humiliation, her employees are despised and live under constant pressure, which ends up triggering many traumas and neurotic behaviors to them. Andrea, just like the other workers of the company, is unaware that she’s being exploited, she feels guilty for being insulted even though she did exactly what Miranda asked and she doesn’t feel entitled to complain because “millions of girls would give their lives for this job”, a phrase they constantly repeat.
- The insecure Nate
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In the case of her boyfriend Nate – starring by Adrian Grenier and known in the book as Alex – the problems are different. At the beginning of the plot, he supports Andrea’s new career, as he recognizes that, in a year working for Miranda, his girlfriend will receive many incredible opportunities and doors will open for her to boost her professional life. Although this is his initial behavior, their relationship changes a lot over time. Nothing is like before. Andy leaves the work too late every day and, tired, cancels all their dates, in addition to leaving their friends behind. As a way to adapt to the new job, she also changes her style, the way she sees the world and starts giving greater importance to subjects that previously didn’t interest her.
Feeling like he’s dating an entirely new and unknown person, Nate becomes bothered by his beloved’s day-to-day life on Runway. Because of that, he acts impatiently and incomprehensibly and begins to chase Andy up over her current personality, inducing her to quit the job and come back to who she was before. And that’s where the controversy comes in.
- So why are opinions divided?
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Many people understand that this would be a normal attitude of someone who cares about the other and wants the person to get rid of something that is consuming her. It’s important to remember that Andy is a journalist, but works as Miranda’s assistant, so she doesn’t follow the profession in which she holds a degree and doesn’t write, even if she says it’s her passion. So Nate thinks it’s not fair for her to go through all this stress without even doing what she loves.
Meanwhile, there are those who believe that actually Nate is an envious chauvinist who doesn’t accept that, in a short time, Andrea will succeed and earn more money than him. In addition, thanks to Runway, his girlfriend goes to trendy places filled with celebrities, which, along with her change of look, arouses jealousy in him.
Several times, Nate accuses Andy of having become a copy of the girls in the magazine, an exact embodiment of everything she criticized most. And that makes the protagonist rethink her current life and ambitions, leaving her undecided between quitting her job or losing her boyfriend and friends and being, perhaps, as alone as her boss.
It’s no surprise to anyone that the role of chief that Miranda plays resembles that of many bosses we know in the real world. The air of superiority and arrogance, in addition to exploitation and inhumane demands on workers are very present characteristics behind the great careers of “success”. It’s also important to remember that she doesn’t have the right to act this way with the employees just because she’s a woman. It’s the pinnacle of liberal feminism to think that it’s okay to step on everyone just because the one doing this is a woman in a powerful post.
At the same time, it is very common for women to give up prominent positions and leave the professional world in the name of personal life, which still drives many women away from the labor market. And, for many times, this correlation is built through blackmail, victimism and insecurity of the partner that doesn’t allow her to moose high flights, limiting her to the domestic environment.
- So what conclusion have we come to?
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We are very used to trying to frame people in the good or bad spectrum and entertainment and audiovisual productions are also responsible for this. It’s hard to demonize or deify someone, because there is no 8 or 80. People oscillate between moments of kindness and wickedness. And there’s nothing more natural than that. Manichaeism does not work for this film – and perhaps not even for reality –. Both are villains for different reasons and, of course, sometimes they are not. Just as in real life, characters change behavior according to the situation and evolve or regress. In the end, even though Miranda has been seen as the real devil for so long, people understood that Nate is too. The first for abusing her power and the last for not being by his girlfriend’s side. Andy had the difficulties of dealing with Miranda at work, but, on the other hand, coming home wasn’t the best option because her boyfriend would be complaining. There was disturbance from all sides.
Therefore, I think the question shouldn’t be who the real devil is – which we already know they both are – but how Andrea didn’t freak out (more) with two extremely unpleasant people around her.
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The article above was edited by Amanda Ardigó.
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