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The Devil Wears Prada was one of the 2000s most iconic movies. Twenty years later, fashionably late, of course, we finally got The Devil Wears Prada 2. And with two films separated by an entire generation, it didn’t take long to notice just how much has changed.
The Devil Wears Prada, directed by David Frankel, is a comedy-drama film based on the 2003 book by author Lauren Weishberger. Starring Anne Hathaway who plays Andy Sachs, an aspiring journalist who accepts an assistant position, alongside Emily Blunt who plays Emily Charlton, to a demanding high-fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 takes place 20 years after the events of the first movie, in which, by the end, Andy left Runway. 20 years later we see her return as the new features editor at Runway, working under Miranda Priestly. It wasn’t just designer clothes, fashion shows and the Runway office that had changed, the media is in a completely different state than before as well. That is the art of seeing a sequel to a movie like The Devil Wears Prada decades later, because it is able to highlight exactly how much has changed in real life.
At the start of the second film, Andy has just received a journalism award, but during the ceremony, her and everyone at her company table receive a text–they’ve all been fired. During her acceptance speech, Andy gives a powerful speech about journalism that got her a lot of attention on social media. It's this video that ultimately leads her back to Runway. Meanwhile at Runway, Miranda finds herself in a PR crisis, and with her magazine at stake, she confides in Andy to help manage the scandal.
The film offers many scenes throughout the film that resonate with a lot of people these days, especially those of us working in PR. One great example is when Andy publishes her first article at Runway, but of course to Miranda, it's not good enough anymore. They are in a heavy PR crisis and it's not just about sharing news updates anymore, it is about getting people to stop their scrolling and actually read the whole story. Like an authentic representation in today’s digital world, everyone is scrolling through thousands of posts daily. The film grapples with the question the everyone in media is trying to figure out: How we get people to stop and take a second to read and listen to what we have to say and how do magazines stay relevant in this oversaturated, high-speed, media consumed world?
Most people today don't even read many magazines anymore, only top companies like Vogue or Forbes win the battle to stay relevant. Even with that level of prestige, it’s still difficult to get attention. This is exactly the kind of conflict The Devil Wears Prada 2 brings us. Runway is a high-profile fashion magazine, any yet, they still fight the same battle for relevance. Miranda even questions if someone like her has become obsolete.
At the beginning of the movie, right after Andy's speech, the camera zooms out from close-up on a headline. But now that zoom isn't on a newspaper or a magazine. It's on an iPad. That’s how we are all consuming the news nowadays. Back when the first Devil Wears Prada came out, people still ordered and received their print magazines in fixed portions in their mailbox. Now we are able to see thousands of headlines in one day. According to various sources, in the early 2000s, people were able to read a dozen to 50 headlines in one day, now that number has skyrocketed to the high hundreds and thousands.
So what has changed about wiggling your way out of a PR crisis, what's the difference between then and now? In both worlds, getting yourself into a PR scandal is no fun, and definitely not easy to reverse. Once you mess up, it sticks with you for a while, in the worst cases it won’t ever go away and your brand's reputation is permanently marred. The thing is, it used to be easier to contain. These days it’s not so easy when about 5.8 billion people have access to social media, which means having access to a story, which leads to misunderstandings, rumors, and the cycle keeps going.
In its fictional world, The Devil Wears Prada 2 accurately portrays what it feels and looks like to be a journalist in our very own non-fiction world. The characters are put to the test when they have to get through to millions online just to keep Runway alive.
