Amongst the endless list of negative on-screen depictions of women, the ‘Evil Career Woman’ stands out as a particularly notable trope. Unlike the many tropes linked to women’s sexualities, which for the most part remain hidden behind higher age ratings, the ‘Evil Career Woman’ is introduced to audiences from a much younger age. Two clear examples stand out from my childhood: Glenn Close as Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians (1996) and Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). Looking at these portrayals of the ‘Evil Career Woman’ in two of my childhood films reveals how the trope has created a lasting impact, with the career woman being viewed as ‘evil’ in society overall.
Miranda Priestly – The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Arguably the most iconic on-screen nightmare boss, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) is the editor-in-chief of the fictional fashion magazine Runway. Our first introduction to her follows her unexpected entrance into the office, resulting in her colleagues’ collective panic. Though this sequence is comedic, it also conveys to the viewer the idea that Miranda Priestly is a woman to be feared. After hiring recent college graduate Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) as her personal assistant, Miranda proceeds to (fittingly, given the film’s title) behave like a boss from hell. From her unreasonable demands to her constant negative comments, Miranda is portrayed as the ultimate heartless career woman. Ultimately, Andy chooses to step away from Miranda and Runway even as she begins to find success. In doing so, Andy rejects the path that would lead her to become another Miranda. She evaluates her morals and ends up choosing to value her relationship with her (frankly, mediocre) boyfriend over her burgeoning career.
Andy’s choice is presented as an admirable one, and the film frames her rejection of Miranda and her world as the victory of a good person who manages to avoid being corrupted by the evil career woman. She is in many ways the antithesis to the trope: she focuses on her relationship with her boyfriend while Miranda’s marriage falls apart, she holds onto her moral compass while Miranda is cruel and sabotages others, and she rejects femininity where Miranda embraces it. The film sets her up as the ideal standard of not-too-extreme career woman that audiences should strive to emulate.
However, on a more recent re-watch, Andy comes across as a far less perfect victim of Miranda’s. She turns up to interview for a job at a prestigious company, puts barely any effort, and makes abundantly clear her derision for the industry she’s trying to enter. She literally tells Miranda during her job interview that “it’s this or Auto Universe”. Andy’s sense of entitlement and idea of herself as a superior kind of journalist make her hard to root for at times, and it’s hard not to feel a little satisfied when she realises how out of her depth she is. In the real world, none of us could turn up like that to interview for a prestigious company and realistically expect to be hired. The film can be understood differently when it is viewed less as the depiction of a good career woman and an evil career woman, but more as two flawed individuals learning from each other (although Andy remains by far the lesser of two ‘evils’).
While the original film in no way needed a sequel, I’m still interested to see where The Devil Wears Prada 2 takes Miranda and Andy. The teaser trailer shows Andy entering an elevator with Miranda in it, acknowledging her with a knowing smile, and standing seemingly as equals. This suggests that the sequel will find Andy returning to Runway having become an established career woman herself. The question is – is she evil yet?
Cruella De Vil – 101 Dalmatians (1996)
A more cartoonishly evil than Miranda Priestly is Glenn Close’s Cruella De Vil from the 1996 live-action version of 101 Dalmatians. Not only does she remain true to the original animated villain from 1961, but she is additionally re-imagined as the owner of her own fashion house. Her entrance scene strongly resembles that of The Devil Wears Prada and possibly inspired the latter’s depiction of Miranda. Cruella’s fashion house runs similarly to Runway, with her frequent cut-throat remarks and employees appearing absolutely terrified in her presence. An article from The Guardian describes her as “Hollywood’s greatest fashion baddie” and points out that in terms of true evil, Miranda Priestly is not in Cruella’s league.
Aside from her traditional evil aspiration to own a puppy-fur coat, which is obviously her most evil trait, Cruella’s status as the ‘Evil Career Woman’ is cemented by her attitude towards love and relationships. Dismayed when Anita mentions the prospect of marriage, Cruella exclaims that “More good women have been lost to marriage, than to war, famine, disease, and disaster. You have talent darling, don’t squander it.” The prioritisation of career and talent over love and marriage comes across as heartless when being spoken by an evil character such as Cruella, but is it really such an awful statement? If it weren’t being spoken by a woman who wants to kill puppies, would more people consider the real implications behind it? In some ways, it speaks to a truth about the women throughout history who have been denied a career, whose interests have been ignored in favour of marriage, or whose husbands have taken credit for their work. It’s not that radical to suggest that the historical institution of marriage has oppressed women. Only, when these words are spoken by an evil career woman, it is far too easy to dismiss them or laugh them off as a humorous example of her heartlessness. Similarly, when she hears that Anita is pregnant, Cruella’s response is “Oh, you poor thing, I’m so sorry”. Once again, it’s true that a lot of women have faced negative impacts on their careers due to having children. Although most of the time that is a product of a work environment that is inhospitable to mothers and it is that system which should be changed, it is still understandable why a career-focused woman like Cruella would be dismayed on Anita’s behalf.
Although Cruella’s ‘extreme’ stance on marriage and children is a humorous demonstration of her ‘heartlessness’, it is also interesting that the film portrays this as the natural course of thought: the evil career woman will also inevitably be anti-marriage and dislike children. The question we’re left to wonder is whether a ‘normal’ career woman also has reason to share those feelings, and how the work environment can still be changed to become more hospitable for women who want to get married and have children.
What do these evil career women have in common?
There are two particularly noticeable similarities between Miranda Priestly and Cruella De Vil: their status as career women in the fashion industry, and their identities as older women.
Their status as evil career women in the fashion industry highlights the interesting gender roles at play within this trope: while the two women have abandoned traditional ‘feminine’ roles that confined women to being wives and mothers in the domestic sphere, they have in some ways remained true to gendered expectations by working in the stereotypically more feminine fashion industry, and by paying a great deal of attention to their glamorous physical appearances. This almost contradictory push-and-pull between not being feminine enough and being too feminine highlights the impossible standards that women are held to (not just the evil ones).
It is also noticeable that in the two examples I’ve mentioned, the evil career woman is quite a bit older than the protagonist. Meryl Streep was 57 years old when she starred as Miranda Priestly, and Glenn Close was 49 when she played Cruella De Vil. These ‘older’ women are beyond redemption, as far past the boundary between good and evil as they are past the age boundary between ‘desirable’ and ‘washed-up’. Meanwhile, the actresses Joely Richardson and Anne Hathaway, 31 and 23 respectively during filming, fit the roles of the younger protégés who still have ‘value’ through a patriarchal lens and provide the audience with a fresh-faced, doe-eyed young woman to root for.
Overall, the underlying implication of this trope is that the character’s evil personality is somehow linked to her status as a career woman. In climbing the metaphorical ladder, she has committed numerous sins: abandoning her femininity, prioritising her growth over domestic duties, emasculating her male colleagues, displaying qualities such as ruthless ambition that are only deemed ‘acceptable’ in men. It’s worth considering that although the trope of the evil career woman is enjoyable and done well in these two films, it is also rooted in misogynistic rhetoric that values women based on their age, desirability, and adherence to or aversion from stereotypical gender roles.