The Devil Wears Prada

Disclaimer: I have not read the book!

Cute movie. Kept me entertained. I really liked Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci & Meryl Streep. I have NO idea how it compares to the book. I did not regret paying the ticket price ... but I think it's clearly a "chick flick".

[Meenah]

My daughter and I are going to see this tomorrow evening!!!!! She loved the book, I have not read it,

[mommax3]

I really want to see this. I read the book and enjoyed it.

Sally

[Meenah]

Amy & I went to see this tonight, it was really a fun "girls' night" movie. We went to dinner first and had Bouillebaise (sp?) and Lemon Drop Martintis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a fun night.

[alison]

Saw this movie. It was ok. Not better than the book, but there were some cute moments. Like the Dean and Deluca sandwich moment -- I crrrrrave those!

[Stella]

Why does Anne Hathaway always play someone getting a "makeover"? I mean... seriously.

[Bittersweet]

No kidding Stellava (sorry I don't know how to quote yet). I would kill to look like Anne in her pre-makeover form.

I thought the movie was fun. Streep was absolutly perfect and the clothes were drool worthy.

[Gwendolyn]

We just watched it...I just finished Nanny Diaries and I kinda feel like there is at least a two book genera of young New York women being beaten up by their older, more established counter-parts. What story are we telling ourselves?


sorry...two deep, but I couldn't help but ponder the mythology of successful women punishing the next generation while coming across as bitchy, crazy, stupid, jealous, etc....

[Auspicious]

We just watched it...I just finished Nanny Diaries and I kinda feel like there is at least a two book genera of young New York women being beaten up by their older, more established counter-parts. What story are we telling ourselves?


sorry...two deep, but I couldn't help but ponder the mythology of successful women punishing the next generation while coming across as bitchy, crazy, stupid, jealous, etc....

I'd love to denounce the stereotype except that that really happened to me in my first year in New York. I haven't read Diaries/Prada, so I can't say how it compares to my experience--I'm guessing my life had fewer chick lit/flick hallmarks.

If it's any comfort, though, I've heard that presented more as a New York thing than a women thing, though. Like once in a comic list of "Why L.A. is better than New York" one of the items was something like "Los Angelenos don't get a kick out of destroying recently graduated, entry-level employees just for the sake of showing we can." I remember reading that and thinking "Wait, how'd they know about that? . . ."

Really I think you can run into a crazy and awful boss anywhere, but if they're a New York woman of a certain echelon, they also tend to be really colorful and therefore fiction-worthy.

ETA: I get that there's also a long history of depicting professionally successful women as universally unpleasant human beings, and that's unfair and sexist. Like I said, I just can't say such people don't exist at all, either.

[Gwendolyn]

ITA...I guess I am more troubled by the fact that these are the stories that have become popular. We, as a society, get something out of this particular story...in a way that an inspiring story about a successful woman making it against all odds doesn't play. The Pursuit of Happyness with a woman protagonist just wouldn't do as well. Instead, that movie is Erin Brockovich where half of the dialogue is about how huge and prominent her rack is. Additionally, a story about a successful woman giving a newbie woman the break she really needed is relegated to Lifetime and/or not at all. We are comforted knowing that the successful women will be super tough on the new women, rather than "unfairly" promoting them. It reinforces a dominant perspective.

Maybe I had better go seek out some caffeine

[Auspicious]

That's true--I can't think of any depictions of an older woman helping a younger woman where it's done in a professional mentor way rather than a maternal way.

I blame the second wave/third wave feminist rift. (It's amazing the range of things I can blame on that. :> )

[Gwendolyn]

I blame the second wave/third wave feminist rift. (It's amazing the range of things I can blame on that. :> )

I've been trying to figure out how to make this sound unabrasive in writing, but I can't seem to get it. Trust that my voice is warm and I am smiling...what rift?

[Auspicious]

Ummm, I'm trying to remember where I read this described . . . or if it9 was in just one place even--probably some pop pseudo-sociology book(s) or article(s) . . .

Basically the idea that the two generations get a bit annoyed with each other--second wavers seeing third wavers as unappreciative of having had the doors busted down for them, being too willing to abandon the hard-won gains made in the workplace, being too willing to please men and too willing to buy their daughters Barbies, too shallow and unfocused in making gains for women.

Third wavers seeing second wavers as offering too few choices, as being stuck on old goals despite the changing landscape, as not offering realistic plans of how to live and work side-by-side with men and being vexed by attempts to find another way, and mostly of undervaluing any idea that women might be elightened and still want to SAHM or be a stripper or a cookie-baker or a lipstick-wearer or whatever.

I guess I find myself pointing at this "rift" whenever I hear a discussion of "Feminists think X!" "No, feminists think Y!" and I find myself thinking, "Well, one of those ideas is pretty second-wave, and the other is pretty third-wave, so you're both right." I think it came up on here once about whether feminists are opposed to women knitting, and I asserted that third-wavers love knitting and won't shut up about it. I think you also see it in things like the froth raised over that Linda R. Hirshman article a few months back--I see that as largely second-wave/third-wave friction, with Hirshman's POV being pretty second-wave.

I guess the thing in this discussion that made me think of it (so easy to wander off track when talking about such a sprawling issue) is that I read it asserted once (and again, this would be more convincing if I could remember where) that second wavers didn't seem interested enough in helping out just-starting-out third-wavers in the workplace, but instead seemed almost to write them off, and in fact would reach over them to devote their attention to even younger girls with such programs as "Take Your Daughters to Work Day." I'm not sure it's true but I'm not sure it's untrue, either.

[Gwendolyn]

Now I get it I do also wonder if that rift is manufactored as well. A companion to this story that is told. If we believe we are fighting eachother...

My DH is away this month and I wanted a movie that was a) not scary cos I'd be scared on my own, b) not romantic cos I'd get depressed and lonely and c) not something my dh would want to see too!!
This movie satisfied all three and was entertaining and I really liked Meryl and Anne, but not worth the hype.
I have not read the book, I dont like to see movies when I have read the book it ruins how I have imagined the characters.