"The Devil" Maximizes Profits
Why Andrea Sachs needs a union.
By Ezra Klein
Monday July 17, 2006
To be honest, my favorite moment of “The Devil Wears Prada” didn’t happen in the movie. It came at the beginning of a New York Times Style section article about the film, which kicked off with a lede recounting the visit of the heroine’s father, who “arrives in New York and pummels his daughter with questions: He wants to know why she is often stuck at the office until 2 a.m., even though she is just an assistant; why her boss calls during dinner; why, given her acceptance to Stanford University Law School, she chose to pursue a career in journalism; and why now she isn’t even doing that, because Runway magazine, where she works, isn’t, after all, The American Prospect.
As a writing fellow at The American Prospect, I was happy to see the paper of record formally declare my publication representative of all that is Boring, Serious, and Honorable in journalism. Turns out this was the Times’ invention; the movie didn’t pay us similar props, at least not by name.
Implicitly, though, the film was one long love letter to my job. The movie follows the post-graduation travails of Andrea Sachs, played by a fresh-faced and charmingly self-effacing Anne Hathaway. Sachs is your stereotypical overachiever, though one blessed with the sort of cheekbones your average valedictorian would give a GPA point for. Editor of her school paper, top graduate of Northwestern University, and accepted into Stanford Law, she decides instead to migrate to the Big Apple and make it in journalism. She’s the sort of do-gooder who probably spent college fighting the machine and, along the way, accumulated the precise sort of résumé needed to become a cog within it.
Apparently, The American Prospect was full up that year, so Sachs found herself standing in Miranda Priestly’s office. Priestly is the fictional alter ego of the notoriously tyrannical editor of Vogue, Anna Wintour. Meryl Streep inhabits her flawlessly, imbuing Priestly with a studied detachment and effortless superiority complex that seems to let her levitate a few feet above the other characters. When Sachs is first in her office and Priestly notes that she has no sense of style, her protests are cut short by a wave of Priestly’s hand and a soft reminder: “That wasn’t a question.” Ouch.
We’re supposed to believe that Sachs is a real outlier here; that she’s fat, unstylish, and inept. That would be an easier sell were she not so luminescent, so instead we have to rely on her obvious contempt for the trappings and self-importance of haute couture to signify that while she is in this world, she is not of it.
The movie’s tension comes as Sachs blurs that line between observer and participant. After a near-firing, she drops the frumpy dress she’d previously employed and emerges as a fashion plate in thigh-high boots. Rather than railing against the job’s long hours and crushing treatment, she begins to accept them, allowing work to supercede her relationships and social life. Her healthy distaste for the superficiality of the industry falls away as she invests in its goals and norms. That, of course, is Andy’s cardinal sin — taking fashion seriously.
As the New York Times story accurately recounts, the tension in “The Devil Wears Prada” stems from the mix of such grueling work with such superficial environs. While none of the demands would be seen as extraordinary in the context of a law firm or medical residency, their transposition onto fashion renders them far beyond the pale. It’s one thing to work 14 hours so Evil Multinational X can acquire Huge Tobacco Firm Y, but to do so for couture? Please.
So let me say this: Speaking as an employee of the world’s most Serious, Honorable, and Worthy journalistic outlet, nobody should work 14-hour days. Not residents, not associates, not editorial assistants. It’s proof of the American labor movement’s weakened state that so many desirable jobs are allowed to run roughshod over so many lives. But when occupational success turns on a willingness to wreck the rest of your existence, that’s a problem no matter what the perceived social worth of the undertaking. When Sachs watches Priestly crush a devoted underling and realizes she has to flee before she loses her humanity, she’s made entirely the right decision, but predicated it on entirely the wrong revelation. It wouldn’t matter whether she was working for The American Prospect — mistreatment at the workplace is a universal affront, neither mitigated nor excused by the value of the cause.
Indeed, it’s the race for these sorts of high-profile positions — the film repeatedly notes how “a million girls would kill for this job” — that has helped decimate the labor consciousness of young adults. It’s hard to expect acceptable treatment in the workplace when you’re competing for slots that come standard with an array of labor violations and unrealistic expectations. The best and the brightest spend decades in school and accumulate mountains of loans so they can pay off their debt working inhumane hours in grueling, entry-level positions. They do the work of two or three people, and they fight for that opportunity, rather than fighting to unionize, so the employer actually has to hire the needed two or three employees.
So does the devil wear Prada? I’m not sure. Nor do I care. The real problem is that the devil maximizes profits, and the angels haven’t organized.
Ezra Klein is a writing fellow at The American Prospect. He blogs at www.EzraKlein.com.
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Comments
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Ezra,
— Peter Rennick - Jul 17, 10:48 PM - #Right on target. To see the intelligence and self-sacrifice of someone like Sax offered up even to the essential silliness of haute couture clarifies completely the submission to authoritarian/proto-fascist business leaders like Priestly that characterizes our current work ethic. It’s by such means the poor defend and maintain the rich, under the guise of patriotism and “united we stand” jingoism. Wake up, America.
Wow… talk about missing the bus.
Sorry, but this kneejerk unionism isn’t terribly progressive.
There’s a reason unionism is on the decline in America, and it’s not that the young are “too stupid to see it” – it’s because it’s just not useful anymore. Employers aren’t the enemy, and we don’t need to “gang up to fight the boss”.
— Joe - Jul 17, 11:14 PM - #Hey Joe,
If it’s just not useful anymore, then why do Bush and friends do whatever they can to prevent workers coming together to organize alternatives, or to stop Congress from raising the minimum wage, etc., etc. Employers have no problem “unionizing”. They call it the Republican Party, I think.
— Peter Rennick - Jul 17, 11:38 PM - #Wow, so on target. You’re absolutely right. While watching the movie, I definitely did snicker and say that she and Emily needed a union—but at the same time, I never really thought that I might need one too. Something to think about.
— Vijaya Thakur - Jul 18, 12:35 PM - #Liked the sentiment but don’t agree with the conclusion. Miranda Priestly uses her first asst - who has the iconic name Emily regardless of who occupies the position - as a personal servant. Notice that these women should be grateful for this indentured servitude. They should be glad to do this for a mere pittance because it brings them within Priestly’s circle. This relationship is the embodiment of American celebrity worship. I agree that the relationship needs union principles, but they would be useless because unfortunately, Sax caves in to the glamour and status-by-association. It shows that even those with the “right” inclinations are susceptible to Priestly-type favors. And her final dissociation is less a rejection of the paradigm that Priestly’s organization follows, than a “giving up” in the face of Priestly’s scary prognosis that Sax is just like her. And the film further shows its cynicism by having Sax benefit from her association with Priestly by the left=handed compliment that Priestly passes to the next boss. My reaction to the movie—aside from the fact that it’s better left to rental status!—was that its message was that we should be content for whatever little crumb we can get; that the employer-employee relationship now is hardly a relationship. The power has swung back almost wholly to employers. Indeed, as individuals, we must identify not as workers but as aspiring executives who are lucky(?) enough to grab the brass ring or as owners of capital. That may be projecting more than the film deserves, but at bottom, this is about celebrity worship at any cost: we heap great accolades on actresses like Meryl Streep, and now extend that to corporate executives; indeed, the more dismissive and abusive, the better, so as to claim some special prestige in the endurance of their self-serving demands. Why else are we treated to the weird juxtaposition of a disgraced, criminal executive Ken Lay receiving accolades and tributes at his funeral attended by at least one ex-president? We seem to desperately want to duplicate these people’s lives, depite how they figuratively look down on us (such as Priestly’s withering dismissals).
— Judy - Jul 18, 01:16 PM - #It’s “Sachs”
I only make a point of it because I thought both the book and the movie were fabulously done.
I don’t know that I agree with you, though (maybe I’m still bent on the “Sax” instead of “Sachs” issue, though).
First, Andrea’s (played by Anne Hathaway in the movie) cardinal sin isn’t taking fashion seriously. Her “sin” may lie in her inability to separate her work from her relationships (evident in both the book and the movie, though more so in the book). It might be a “sin” that she recognizes the evil actions of her boss whom she hates but doesn’t decide for herself to act otherwise when trying to survive and further herself in the industry (more apparent in the movie than the book). But if it were a sin to take fashion seriously, then we wouldn’t feel sorry for Stanley Tucci’s character, Nigel, who clearly takes fashion seriously. In the movie (not the book), Nigel is passed over for a promotion he was nearly promised so that Miranda (Meryl Streep) can ensure her tenure as the magazine’s editor.
In one monologue, the movie does a fine job explaining the importance of the role of the fashion world. Miranda sticks it to Andrea by telling her how her Gap sweater ended up being cerulean.
— Charles - Jul 18, 02:28 PM - #Both the movie and the book are brilliant in their ability to complicate characters, leaving audiences and readers unable to completely love or completely hate a character (though in different places in each).
Here’s a thought: What she should have done is not take the job – funny how that works, eh?
Saying that if you take a job, you’re entitled to like it – that’s tantamount to government-ensured employment.
There’s also the option, if you have a hellish boss, of appealing to the boss above you – presumably, a hellish boss is not in the company’s best interests. But if the company cares more about the boss from hell more than they care about your wishes? See my previous statement about having the option to quit. The employer-employee bond is not some “till death do us part” arrangement.
— Joe - Jul 19, 01:03 AM - #Joe, if “employers aren’t the enemy, and we don’t need to “gang up to fight the boss,” does this mean you think the conditions of today’s labor market, including unpaid internships and 14-hour days just to get a foot in the door, are OK?
I’m receptive to your claim that perhaps merely unioninzing, in the old form, wouldn’t work in today’s economy. However, since you prescribe no other remedy, I’m gonna stick with Ezra. It’s hardly “kneejerk unionism,” and your critique would be more useful if it offered an alternative.
— Josh - Jul 21, 02:13 PM - #Let me just chime in here by saying that A) I agree completely with your conclusions about labor (though I haven’t read the book or seen the movie); and B) as a person who has worked in progressive non-profits for years and throughout, only been in one union position, NO ONE fights a union like the left. Take a look at any swath of ‘progressive’ non-profits and you’ll find far fewer of them organized than in the corporate or government sectors.
— Elisa - Jul 21, 02:17 PM - #They are afraid that they may have to pay a living wage or not work their employees for 14 hour days. Ain’t that a kick in the head?
Ezra,
I finally saw the movie and realized what you were talking about at the CP journalism session we had. Right on.
— Jenn - Jul 21, 04:09 PM - #I think we need a little intellectual honesty here.
Joe’s right—Sachs should jet if she’s being treated so poorly. It would, without a doubt, be the company’s loss—and after losing several top notch employees to competing firms or professions, the company would do well to fire the tyrant bosses and relax the hellish days.
— Tommy - Jul 21, 04:13 PM - #There’s a balance to strike. Yes, let’s talk labor—but the real problems of labor and hours and mistreatment. Not Vogue. There’s a real problem with any conclusion that would equate what Andy Sachs went through with genuine mistreatment. The film promotes the erosion of values of hardwork and dedication and trivializes what it is to be truly mistreated. Andy’s job was not difficult compared to the life of a woman who has no alternative and is working three minimum-wage jobs to support her children.
If we want to talk about labor, start there. Not with poor Andy Sachs wearing Chanel thigh-highs.
If she left because her values were different, because she did not feel that the mental costs of the position were outweighed by the professional benefits, that’s one thing – and that’s the part of the conclusion I could accept. (I had a harder time swallowing that it was “noble” be unable to accept the fact that you may differ from your employer.) She was receiving a viable salary and excellent experience and references. My overriding thought for the film was, “What a whiner.”
— B. - Sep 10, 11:52 PM - #