The Devil Wears Prada

I thought I had already talked about this movie. I'm absolutely certain I have, but it was on Metafilter and they may have deleted it and maybe I repeated some of the same points on Reddit at some point.

I kind of like the film because I fancy myself a writer and it's loosely based on Anna Wintour, longtime editor of Vogue, and I am interested enough in clothes that I would like to do a clothing line. 

But it's mostly an awful story.

The main character is living in New York City and has an entry level job and after a lifetime of zero interest in clothes, while living in circumstances where just paying rent should be a challenge, she takes an interest in clothes and suddenly has a zillion outfits that are stylish and include designer pieces. 

It's implausible both because suddenly knowing how to dress overnight is highly unlikely and it would take not only money but substantial time and effort to put such a wardrobe together. She not only shouldn't have the money, the story claims her boyfriend and friends are critical of the fact that the job takes all her time to boot.

Her friends are absolute assholes to the max while the narrative tries to paint them as salt of the earth and trying to keep her grounded while she loses her ideals and character. They greedily grab up expensive items she only has because of said job, then moments later play keep away with her phone because her boss is calling.

I would have never spoken to them again if it were me.

When I commented on Metafilter, I talked about how awful her boyfriend was and how much I hated it that she goes back to him at the end of the movie like a moron. Some people replied to that to suggest that isn't necessarily the correct interpretation of the ending and I think to say in the book she absolutely didn't go back to him.

The one silver lining is the "bad guy," Christian Thompson, who actually reads her writing when he says he will. I think some other character says he will and doesn't.

Thompson saves her job when her boss gives her an impossible task and offers to introduce her to his editor, but she declines because she needs to rush home to the butthead boyfriend.

If you are a woman trying to figure out the career thing, this is a mostly ridiculous and useless story, except for the imperfect Christian Thompson who fails to be some paragon of virtue.

I've had discussions with people where the consensus was that media and literature almost always give women two options:

1. Marry the Good Guy (TM) and PROMPTLY cease to be at all interesting or have a life and revert to being the little wifey as the logical conclusion of him rescuing some damsel in distress from the evils of any life outside of being chattel property of a good man.

2. Remain interesting and keep your career and date a Bad Guy (TM).

My recollection is Cat Woman of the Batman franchise consistently either married Batman and becomes the little wifey or remains a villain and dates other villains. There's no circumstance under which Cat Woman becomes a female vigilante alongside Batman, male vigilante.

I don't have the answers. I was the little wifey for two decades and then I got divorced and I'm some loser with no life and no clue how to make my life work who blogs in part because I remain baffled at how a woman can have both a career and a happy relationship.

And I wear that failure on my sleeve as food for thought for other people because I'm very confident most other people aren't even asking the right questions yet based on patterns like this.