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The Devil Wears Prada 2 is capitalist art that hates capitalist art

The millennial fairy tale takes aim at corporate greed and the death of creativity. But it largely exists because of them.

The Devil Wears Prada is one of the great millennial fairy tales.

Released in 2006, the year before the financial crisis and Great Recession would come for us all, the movie (based on a novel inspired by writer Lauren Weisberger’s experience working for Anna Wintour at Condé Nast) posits a subversive fantasy: Our heroine Andrea “Andy” Sachs (Anne Hathaway) believes that if she can figure out how to work for Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) for just one year, she can have any job in the industry that she wants. In the end, she learns that if you work hard and stay true to your values, you can have a good, well-paying job in New York City that doesn’t require selling your soul or betraying your friends.

Given the way life has shaken out for many millennials, that story is now a bit depressing — not unlike the way most fairy tales, upon greater inspection, are. But this generation has always wanted to believe that one can have a fulfilling job and fulfilling personal relationships, without having to suffer too much or inflict suffering on the world. And if we did sell our souls and our relationships, it’d actually be for the chicest job on the planet, and a launchpad to something greater.

I will always have a special affection for The Devil Wears Prada. I saw it multiple times in theaters, considered it a treat and watched it with commercials on TBS or TNT, and, leading up to this week’s release, I streamed it. It’s also one of the few movies I actually own (on my Apple TV account).

And this deep fidelity exists all despite never reading Lauren Weisberger’s original novel and having a very casual relationship with fashion.

I love that TDWP is about being a young, hopeful journalist in 2006; I was also a young hopeful journalist 20 years ago (definitely less young and perhaps slightly more cynical today). I had been living in New York for a short time, was working as a freelancer, and had a part-time retail job. I remember seeing the movie, walking out of the Regal in Union Square, and fully believing its tenets of hard work and personal responsibility, and that a boss who called women paratroopers “dirty, tired, and paunchy” was maybe not as evil as she seems.

It changed the architecture of how I thought about my aspirations, the city I lived in, and my future. Obviously, some of those ideas have since shifted, and the financial collapse of 2007–2008 wasn’t great for journalism, but, like Andy, I’m still here.

Now, some 20 years later, The Devil Wears Prada has returned for a sequel. Like the original, it runs on millennial optimism. But in this installment, its critiques — about money, society, art,........

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