It’s funny to think that as recently as 2022, when discussing The Devil Wears Prada, Anne Hathaway told The View, “I don’t know if there can be [a sequel]. I just think that movie was in a different era. Now everything’s gone so digital and that movie is centered around the concept of producing a physical thing and it’s just, it’s just very different.” But the thing is, it’s been very different for a while. Which is why it seems as if the entire concept behind The Devil Wears Prada 2 is only now catching up to the goings-on of the past, oh, let’s say eighteen years (to put it two years after The Devil Wears Prada came out). Because yes, 2008 was arguably the “last days of disco” when it came to anything resembling “print magazine supremacy.” Something that Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel relies on for its “comedic value.” For, once upon a time, it was comedic (rather than “triggering”) for antagonists to be bitchy women. À la Miranda Priestly. Immortalized by Meryl Streep’s rendering as a white-haired, sideswept bob-styled, sunglasses-sporting ice queen.
As the editor-in-chief of Runway (the overt stand-in for Vogue), Miranda’s fear-inducing clout, in 2006, lies entirely in the fact that print was still powerful. So powerful, in fact, that the book version of The Devil Wears Prada indicates that, to dry clean just one article of clothing from “The Closet,” it costs a minimum of seventy-five dollars. Which means the budget for the magazine and all of its self-indulgent frivolities, at that time, was obviously insane. And, considering how “messy” Andrea “Andy” Sachs is, that turns out to be quite costly within the first few pages of Weisberger’s novel. And maybe extracting this detail from the movie adaptation in 2006 was not just a sign of how hard it would be for some audience members to stomach watching couture being “destroyed” in that staining way, but also because even just three years after the book came out, it was already starting to become clear that things—budgets—were “shifting.” Even if not entirely in a way that suggested print’s total demise in the face of the “online-ification” of everything.
But soon after the release of The Devil Wears Prada, with the advent of online publications (that never started in print to begin with) or mere “blogs” by “complete nobodies” (Tavi Gevinson’s Style Rookie, which she started in 2008 at age eleven, comes to mind), the space that Miranda and her ilk inhabited became more threatened—more endangered—than ever. Yet The Devil Wears Prada 2 seems to exist in a world where this is only just now starting to become the case. And that it wasn’t already becoming a major issue in the 2000s. Then again, the reason for that odd sense of the narrative being “late to the party” on what’s been happening is perhaps twofold: 1) a sequel addressing this matter wasn’t able to come out until twenty years later and 2) the “print being felled” phenomenon is only just now really taking down the last bastions of old guard institutions like Condé Nast. Rebranded as “Elias-Clarke” in The Devil Wears Prada.
What’s more, just as it is in real life with Jeff Bezos rumored to be buying Condé Nast (hence, Anna Wintour, the inspiration for Miranda Priestly, allowing him to further sully the already hypocrisy-laden Met Gala with his déclassé presence—as represented mostly by his new wife, Lauren Sánchez, while Bezos himself skulked in “through the back”), it is going to take a billionaire’s money to keep Runway afloat in the sequel.
This, naturally, means compromising the erstwhile highly-prized “integrity” of the magazine. As if it wasn’t already catering and kowtowing to its many advertisers. Chief among them being Dior, where Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt) presently works as a senior executive who relishes the opportunity to cut Miranda, Nigel (Stanley Tucci) and Andy (Anne Hathaway) down to size when they all come into the office with their proverbial tail between their legs after what can be referred to as the “the SpeedFash debacle.” For Miranda was foolish enough to allow a “glowing article” about a fast fashion company (as if the name “SpeedFash” wasn’t a dead giveaway) with some very questionable business practices to be published in the hallowed “pages” (a.k.a. intangible online abyss) of Runway. As a result, the couture brands that bankroll the fledgling existence of the magazine are up in arms, Dior most certainly included. So it is that Emily milks Miranda’s faux pas for all it’s worth by securing the promise of three pages of advertising “credit” and a five-page feature on the new Dior flagship store that’s about to open.
This after Andy tries to make a little speech about how Runway still needs to maintain its journalistic integrity. In fact, Andy making little speeches about journalistic integrity is what landed her the job as a senior features editor at Runway in the first place. For the crux of The Devil Wears Prada 2 as a “love letter” (/final knell) for print media (even though it’s more of a “surrender Dorothy” message about capitalism) begins with Andy at the “NYPC” Journalism Awards, where she and a slew of her fellow journalists are up for awards in different categories for their work.
When Andy, who works at a fictional newspaper called The Vanguard, is announced as a winner of the “Golden Keyboard” award “for the story or series that constitutes outstanding enterprise or investigative reporting,” it’s just after she and her colleagues have been sent a text blast informing them that they’re out of a job. So it is that, after giving an impassioned speech about how journalism still matters, Andy, as is the fairy-tale way of movies (especially ones written by Aline Brosh McKenna), gets “discovered” (a.k.a. sent a direct message on Instagram), thanks to the viral video of her, by Jay Ravitz (B. J. Novak), who then shows it to his father, Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), the owner of Elias-Clarke and chairman of Runway.
After seeing it, Irv has the “bright idea” that hiring Andy will bring back integrity to Runway’s journalism in the wake of the SpeedFash humiliation. And since she has so much “publicity” around being “golden-hearted,” he’s convinced it will somehow rub off on Runway’s current “in the shitter” reputation. Ah, such is the out-of-touch nature of these types of mainstream narratives. But then again, maybe one should count themselves “lucky” that the mainstream is offering to acknowledge print publications in any way, shape or form, let alone in a form that serves as a(n ultimately faux) takedown of “the billionaire”/“the suits” in general that pillage what’s left of any artistic medium and totally ruin it by “business-ifying” (sometimes called “streamlining”) everything.
But, at this point, the audience that’s been bamboozled into believing that Runway or its real-life equivalent, Vogue, was ever anything other than an “enterprise,” is deluding themselves into thinking that any “art” that runs/relies on other people’s money to stay afloat is actually true art. Alas, it is not. But the capitalists will never understand that. Never fucking compute an artistic entity that continues to function without at least the promise of some eventual payoff. This is why, Andy, in her own way, fits the bill of being derisively called a “vendor” and “not a visionary.” The insult that Miranda lobs at Emily while apparently unaware that she—and everyone else under the Elias-Clarke umbrella—falls under the same category at the end of the day.
Nonetheless, after getting laid off from The Vanguard, Andy can feel self-righteous when she vents to her “best friend,” Lily (Tracie Thoms), one of the “holdovers” from the pool of more minor characters that appeared in the first movie (though noticeably absent is Nate [Adrian Grenier]), “The CEO of the company that owns the paper just took home eleven million last year.” As if this hasn’t been going on for most of the twenty-first century. But Andy acts if it’s all just now happening only because it’s suddenly happening to her (or, as Lady Gaga [who provided a song called, what else, “Runway” for the movie’s soundtrack] once put it, “‘Til it happens to you, you don’t know how it feels, how it feels/‘Til it happens to you, you won’t know, it won’t be real”). Though she’s been at least vaguely aware all along, adding, “Everyone I know is going through this. Layoffs, downsizing, consolidation.” Until, it seems, Elias-Clarke is the only publisher left standing. Which is why Andy willingly returns to Runway despite remembering very well how it all went down during her first tour of duty there.
Miranda, on the other hand, appears to have no recollection whatsoever of Andy when she flounces into her office all ready, willing and eager to “work together.” But even Emily immediately recognizes Andy (and why shouldn’t she, considering Andy took away her dream of going to Paris Fashion Week?) when she spots her walking into the Dior office with Miranda and Nigel. At which time she has “verbal lashings” prepared for both, ribbing Andy for her unchanged eyebrows and Nigel for his total lack of authority as they sit down for their post-SpeedFash powwow, telling him, “Remember when magazines were a thing?”
Of course Nigel remembers (though most everyone after his generation does not). And reflects on it with Andy as they peruse the offerings at the cafeteria yet again together, informing her, “Runway stopped being a magazine many years ago. We still have a book, but practically nobody buys it. We are digital, we are downloadable, we are streamable, we are in the ether.” Thus adding another lament to the pile of dialogue and plot that relates to the death of print/journalism.
In the background of it all is the looming threat of more downsizing in the wake of Irv’s unexpected death just before he was going to announce Miranda’s promotion as Global Head of Content (something that Anna Wintour experienced after relinquishing her editor-in-chief title at Vogue and becoming the Global Chief Content Officer for Condé Nast). With his feckless son left in charge, the future of Runway is even more imperiled. Which is why, as part of yet another “Cinderella story” plot pivot, Andy teams up with Emily, who just happens to be dating recently divorced billionaire Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux)—who is something akin to being a mash-up of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk—to secure the necessary funds to buy Runway from Jay before he guts everything and everyone.
Unfortunately for Miranda, Andy realizes too late that Emily isn’t trying to “save the magazine” or help secure Miranda’s job at all. Instead, she’s simply trying to run it herself, admitting, “Benji’s buying Runway for me.” And so it is that the whims of not just a billionaire, but a billionaire’s boo strikes again (which also smacks of Lauren Sánchez). Conveniently, however, the plot has already initiated the presence of yet another billionaire hovering in the background. Namely, Benji’s ex-wife, Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu), who won an ample sample of those billions in their recent divorce. It’s Andy who “miraculously” manages to get the first interview with her since becoming one of the richest women in the world, which establishes the through line of Sasha stepping in at the eleventh hour to oust Benji from buying Runway by instead purchasing all of Elias-Clarke (music to Jay’s ears, who has wanted to offload the company for years, but couldn’t because his father was still around).
So it is that one of the fundamental messages of The Devil Wears Prada 2 (apart from the fallacy of how all genuinely “hard workers” will find work no matter what) isn’t really about an “ode” to print or “saving it” at all. Rather, it’s a reminder that if any print publication wants to “remain” (and also remain at least semi-profitable), it will have to find a billionaire to bend over for. It just so happens to align with the “Hollywood ending” trope that Andy and Miranda scare up a “benevolent” billionaire (total oxymoron) to be their backer for Runway. A unicorn amidst a sea of daft male pricks with no sartorial savvy whatsoever.
When reflecting upon this marvelous and unexpected form of “salvation,” Miranda offers a Titanic metaphor, reminding Andy in one of the final scenes, “Elias-Clarke’s just the last piece of wood floating next to the Titanic. And, for now, yeah, there is room for both of us.” The implication being that, when there’s not, Miranda won’t hesitate to push Andy right off. For there is no solidarity in “artistic endeavors” when there’s this few paying jobs surrounding them. Then again, The Devil Wears Prada 2 assumes there was ever solidarity in the first place among “paid artists” like the New Yorkers working in publishing. The ones who, like Andy and Miranda, still assume they’re the crème de la crème when it comes to print offerings (however scant the competition may be on that front). An assumption based purely on their circulation and visibility…which is bought by the money of billionaires.