An Early-Career Gen Z and a Freelance Millennial Walk Into "The Devil Wears Prada 2"
A discussion about work and why we (still) do it.
From 2015 to 2017, I worked at W as a digital associate. At the time, the magazine was still a part of Condé Nast, so for two years, I lived the Devil Wears Prada dream, interviewing celebrities like Paris Hilton, attending fashion weeks around the world, and interacting with legendary editors like Edward Enninful. I even got to embarrass myself in front of Anna Wintour. (She once caught me lifting my butt up to the keycard scanner outside the building, since my ID was in my back pocket and my hands were full of Starbucks. “Sorry,” I said, ass in the air, as she opened the door without acknowledgment.)
I worked all the time, writing multiple “articles” a day while also managing the magazine’s social media accounts. But I was learning a lot and felt like I was finally in the right place. The magazine industry was changing (and at Condé Nast, about a decade too late), but I didn’t see the abrupt shuttering of Style.com, rumors of Apple acquiring the company, or the fact that we shared a floor with Golf Digest as a reason to jump ship. The days of workplace hazing were (mostly) over. Instead, the higher-ups were counting on young people like me to figure out this whole “digital” thing, and gave me a lot of room to experiment. I believed that if I put my head down, wrote a handful of viral stories, and fired off a few sick tweets, I’d get to where I wanted to go (to New York magazine’s The Cut), and thankfully, this turned out to be true.
In 2016, my former professor’s daughter, Ila Kumar, came to visit. She was 13-years-old and an aspiring magazine writer. To her, the shiny halls of One World Trade were the most glamorous place to be, and even though I knew deep down that they weren’t (as Nigel says in The Devil Wears Prada 2, I’m in the business of creating “content that people scroll past as they pee”), her excitement reminded me that a million girls would kill for my job.
Ten years later, I wonder if that’s still the case. Ila just graduated from college (we both went to Vassar, Meryl Streep’s alma mater, and where Anne Hathaway studied for a year before transferring to NYU) and is now looking for a job in media, since her two publishing internships just ended. (She also recently wrote about Brandy Melville for Shop Rat.)
After seeing the movie this weekend, I called her up to discuss. Does the job still hold the same allure? What was her takeaway from the sequel? Below is an edited version of our conversation.
Spoilers ahead.
Emilia Petrarca: Before we get into the sequel, I want to talk to you about the original movie, which I re-watched last week. Have you seen it? What was your takeaway? Because I was like, Damn, this still hits.
Ila Kumar: Yes, I loved the original. It depicts this really specific fantasy world that, in my opinion, is even more far-gone now. The anorexia of it all is so early-2000s fashion-core. When I saw the movie growing up, I was like, “Wow.” That’s the appeal, though: it’s this other dimension. And in the end, we get this beautiful message: that you don’t have to tear people down to further your career. Miranda even helps Andy get the job she wants.
Yeah, the original movie leaves you feeling good, and I can’t say the same about the sequel. It’s always been a touchstone for me—a reminder that being a good person and doing good work is what will get you ahead. What does the original symbolize for you?
That it’s important not to hurt those who have helped you. But also, Andy comes to realize that fashion is not frivolous. For me, that was a really meaningful point. She’s part of something bigger that matters. They make fashion seem like a serious endeavor that has substance. Even my mom, who’s an economist and has definitely never seen the movie, texted me yesterday: “Have you seen the speech about the turquoise belt?” And I was like, “It’s cerulean.” But still. I don’t think that message, or that tension, plays out as much in the second movie.
Okay, let’s talk about the sequel. It starts with Andy being fired over text message seconds before accepting a journalism award for her article, “Hearts of the City: Stories of Resiliance,” which sounds like an AI-generated title to me. What was your reaction to that?
I was like, Wow, I’ve never seen a journalist with such long hair. That scene was realistic, though, I guess. I assume it was based on the Washington Post situation. It reminded me of reading a novel about COVID; the whole thing felt like last summer’s news cycle, with Anna Wintour becoming Head of Global Content and the rumors about Jeff Bezos buying Vogue for his wife. [He ended up buying her the Met Gala instead.] The fact that Vogue is promoting this movie so hard is confusing to me. It’s so dark.
To me, the fact that Vogue has played such a big role in promoting the movie is a sign of how much the movie industry is also suffering. In the sequel, they talk about how Runway doesn’t exist without advertisers like Dior, but movies don’t exist without shameless product placement nowadays either. I’m willing to bet that Dior threw in a couple of bucks, along with Brunello Cucinelli, Diet Coke, and Starbucks.
Just as fashion recycles everything, Hollywood is remaking old IPs. And laid-off journalists are going to Bubby’s for casual drinks! That was crazy. They don’t sell Stella at Bubby’s!!! Also, Andy is like, “I need a nicer apartment.” But I was like, “No, you just need a plumber. Your apartment is so nice.” The boyfriend arc in the sequel is also devastating. Adrien Grenier is so gorgeous in the original. And now she’s just with some guy??
Yeah, that casting was tough. Vogue’s involvement in the promotion is unfortunate because the original seemed to have a bit more critical distance. It kind of proved the point of the movie: that we can’t afford to have creative freedom anymore.
The Dior stuff is so real. I was confused why Andy went back to Runway so quickly. She didn’t even try to get another job.
Yeah, and they’re definitely not paying her double, unless she really wasn’t making any money at her journalism gig.
If you want to write a three-part investigation about the Federal Reserve, then you should. Also, you probably don’t want to go into business with billionaires.
Yeah, let’s jump to the very end: Andy and Miranda save the magazine from being bought by an evil billionaire by selling it to another, slightly less evil billionaire, which is also depressingly true to life. The conversation they have in the back of the car together echoes the final scene in the original, where Miranda tells Andy she sees herself in her, and Andy is like, Hell no, and throws her phone into the fountain and walks away. At the end of the sequel, though, they’re basically co-conspirators. Miranda is like, This is a sinking ship, but we just love the work so much that we’re going to keep doing it anyway, right? It came at a cost—she was an absent parent, and Andy’s eggs are in a freezer—but it was all worth it for beauty and journalism!!! To me, this is the exact opposite of the original message, which was: Get a life. Work is not everything. I’m not sure I find the opposite message particularly empowering or progressive, which I think it was written to be. I’m curious what your takeaway was, specifically about work?
When I see these movies about working at magazines, I’m like, “It would be so cool to be part of this bigger thing.” To pursue beauty and do meaningful editorial work. But in TDWP2, it’s framed in this weird way where Miranda is like, “I love to work.” Like, it’s her personal thing, and not about the community aspect. There’s a moment at the dinner in Italy when she gives this little speech to the billionaire who’s trying to buy Runway. Miranda is talking about the pursuit of beauty, trying to grasp the larger idea of what it means to work at a magazine. And if they had all banded together to save Runway, it would have been cool. But in the car at the end, she tells Andy something like, “I love to work, so I’m going to be the editor-in-chief for 10 more years, because that’s my favorite thing to do. And then you can capitalize on that and write a book about me to get ahead.” I thought that was really depressing. There was no sense of a greater mission or purpose beyond the self.
I’m glad that you brought up the community aspect, because I do think that’s one possible positive takeaway. Obviously, my favorite part of the movie—and the original, too—is the relationships between Andy and Emily and Andy and Nigel. At the end of the sequel, Emily asks Andy to be her friend. Even Miranda acknowledges Nigel! I don’t miss my old job, but I do miss the community aspect of working in an office. Liana Satenstein wrote about seeing TDWP2 with all her old Vogue co-workers, and it’s such a sweet story. They really loved working together and are friends for life. The point is not the work, necessarily; it’s that you get to do this crazy thing with other people.
And learn from people. My favorite character was Andy’s intern. Much has been said about the heyday of Condé Nast, but the trope of the Magazine Girl is still alive. They didn’t make Andy a Substacker, even though she should be. Instead, she’s back at the magazine.
I’m curious, does the office still have an allure for people your age?
On my last day as a publishing intern, an assistant who’s a few years older than me was like, “Whatever you do, only give 60% of yourself to a job.” It was kind of shocking for me to hear, as someone who sees how these jobs, hers included, are so coveted and competitive. I think the office does have an allure, because so much of that culture doesn’t exist anymore, and so much of our work is remote. Because of COVID, a lot of people my age didn’t have in-person internships throughout college and stuff like that. So the idea of a workspace is really appealing. It’s precisely because magazines are so much harder to break into now that they’re so attractive. The day we had grilled cheeses at the Condé Nast cafeteria was the best day of my life. Why? Because I got to see inside. So there’s still a huge attraction, but for my generation, there’s a tension between being interested in the workplace and being interested in work.
Something that struck me watching the original—and the sequel—is Andy’s ambition. When Miranda is like, “Get me the unpublished Harry Potter book,” or “Get me the interview with the billionaire’s ex who hasn’t given an interview in three years,” she goes the extra mile and gets the job done. She’s not giving 60%. It’s a very intoxicating feeling, chasing the pat on the back, but it can also ruin your life. When you’re at the start of your career, it feels worth it because you’re trying to “pay your dues,” or whatever. Your hard work will hopefully pay off. But in the second movie, there’s less of a “why.” Okay, Andy loves the work. But does she? Does she really like writing a profile of a billionaire’s ex?? Or does she just like getting a gold star from Miranda?
I love that Instagram account, @assistantsvsagents. It’s the most insane screenshots of people going to the ends of the Earth for their terrible bosses. That culture definitely still exists. But what are we doing it for? It would have been a slam dunk for the movie to be like, “We’re doing this because we’re saving a dying art.” But instead, the message is: “You’re doing this because you, as an individual, love to work.” Because you’re Andy, and you’re ambitious. And because you’re Miranda, and you’re ambitious. And because we sold the magazine to the Good Billionaire. Obviously, I didn’t expect it to be some radical, employee-owned, subscription business. But I was really surprised that that was the solution.
I guess my final question is: Would you do it? Would you take Andy’s job?
Literally, the whole time, I was like, “Oh, my God, I am so jealous.” When I watched the first movie, I couldn’t wait to do that one day. Now I’ve graduated from college, and I wake up every single day looking at the Content Tower, and I’m still like, “One day.” The precarity is just part of it, and that’s fine, I guess. And these companies have always been owned by some random billionaire family.
It’s true. Hearing you say that makes me less depressed.
We’re aware it comes at a cost, and that you can’t have it all. But people interested in magazines are willing to do it anyway. If you care about doing creative work, you probably don’t care about work-life balance.
In my head, Gen Z is like, “Fuck it. I’m just gonna be like an influencer.” But to your point, if you want to write, you don’t want to sell your soul to brands. You want to write. And you’ll do whatever it takes to do that. (Which sometimes means selling your soul to brands, at least in my experience.)
I want to be in an environment where I can learn from other people. That’s what I imagine it’s like to work in an office: you’re just constantly overhearing stuff.
I’m happy to hear that. I’m really glad you’re still going for it. I’m surprised, but I wouldn’t have the perspective I have today had I not worked in that building, lived it, and done it. If I hadn’t had that opportunity, I would still want it, for sure.
I would do literally anything. I’m applying for a part-time, two days a week summer internship at The Drift right now, and I know a 28-year-old with a master’s degree from Cambridge University applying for the same job. It’s crazy.
Damn. A million and one girls would kill for these jobs now.
Or start a Substack.
Well, I hope whoever is reading this tries to hire you.
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Great pictures. Great job. Really enjoyed this article.
👩🏻🎨 It has been “MY”experience, that NO sequel is ever as good, as the 👠original, NO matter how hard they try! &: 💄Remember that the original movie, came out 20 💋years ago! It has lost its: 🍎Freshness!