The Devil Wears Prada: Miranda Priestly - A Defense of Perfectionism

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“Truth is, there is no one that can do what I do.”
Miranda Priestly is the “perfectionist mindset”
brought to life in one person.
The iconic Editor in Chief of Runway, a publication resembling Vogue,
knows exactly what she wants and exactly HOW she wants it.
“For the fortieth time, no.
I don't want dacquoise,
I want tortes filled with warm rhubarb compote.”
No detail is too small for Miranda.
“If I see freesias anywhere...
I will be very disappointed.”
And no excuse is acceptable for failing to meet her high standards.
“I actually did confirm last night—”
“Details of your incompetence do not interest me.”
The devil in The Devil Wears Prada is supposedly the villain of this story.
“Meryl Streep is the bad guy.
You never see it coming.”
Yet her pursuit of excellence also makes her a role model
for working women everywhere.
Here's our Take on how channeling Miranda's perfectionism
will make you the consummate professional,
if you're willing to pay the price.
“That's all.”
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Perfectionism is defined as striving for flawlessness,
and being extremely critical when that bar isn't met.
“I saw the pictures that he sent for that feature
on the female paratroopers and they're all so deeply unattractive”
The image that sticks in most people's minds is
the CHAOS that ensues before Miranda's arrival at work.
“She's on her way.
Tell everyone.”
So before we even meet this character,
this portrait of how she impacts her environment
tells us she runs the tightest of ships,
and her expectation of perfection
motivates her entire staff to be better than they are.
“I asked for clean, athletic, smiling.
She sent me dirty, tired and paunchy.”
While everyone is always scrambling and struggling
to get things right for Miranda,
she herself never appears out of control.
She always maintains a precise mental picture of the plan.
“I want the driver to drop me off at 9:30
and pick me up at 9:45 sharp.”
She also has an encyclopedic knowledge of her industry.
“One thought I had was enamel.
Um, bangles, pendants, earrings.”
“No.
We did that two years ago.
What else?”
Thus, the picture that emerges is that Miranda is on a higher level
than everyone else, and far from lowering herself
to be understood by mere mortals, she demands that others keep up.
“I need 10 or 15 skirts from Calvin Klein.”
“What kind of skirts do you—”
“Please bore someone else with your questions.”
Her first name even comes from the Latin mirandus,
meaning “wonderful, marvelous, worthy of admiration.”
“We deliver it to Miranda's apartment every night, and she retu—
Don't touch it.
She returns it to us
in the morning with her notes.”
There are three distinct types of perfectionism:
Self-oriented perfectionism, which means having high standards
for yourself and being self-critical when you fall short.
Socially-prescribed perfectionism, which is the feeling that you need
to live up to external expectations for validation.
And other-oriented perfectionism, which means expecting perfection
from others and being highly judgmental of their performance.
Miranda is a textbook illustration of other-oriented perfectionism.
“Why is no one ready?”
She accepts nothing less than the best from her employees
and eviscerates them when they don't meet that standard.
“It's just baffling to me.
Why is it so impossible to put together
a decent run-through?
You people have had
hours and hours to prepare.
It's just so confusing to me.”
As a boss, she creates an environment where everyone lives
in a constant state of terror.
But on another level, Miranda's exacting standards
have a very positive effect.
We can see the beneficial results of Miranda's mentorship
in the transformation of her assistant, the movie's protagonist, Andy.
Let's take a minute to look at who Andy is when the movie begins.
She's woefully unprepared for her job interview,
“Who's Miranda?”
“Oh, my God.
I will pretend you did not just ask me that.”
“So you don't read Runway?”
“Uh, no.”
she has no real experience outside of her college newspaper,
nor can she find work anywhere else,
“Basically, it's this or Auto Universe.”
and she has a condescending, “holier-than-thou” attitude about fashion.
“Because this place, where so many people
would die to work, you only deign to work.”
We know this young woman is smart and passionate.
She's willing to give up
what would be a more secure career path
in order to pursue her dream of writing.
“I'm just trying to understand why someone who got accepted
to Stanford Law turns it down to be a journalist.”
But she hasn't really accomplished anything yet when she arrives at Runway.
What she learns from Miranda, is excellence.
“Call my husband and confirm dinner.”
“At Pastis?
Done.”
“And I'll need a change of clothes.”
“Well, I've already messengered your outfit over to the shoot.”
Andy starts off not understanding the importance of details.
“The amount of time and energy that these people spend
on these insignificant, minute details, and for what?”
This lesson is epitomized in the scene at the run-through,
where she doesn't see any difference between two belts.
“Both those belts look exactly the same to me.”
To Miranda, there is a glaring difference.
And to underline her point that details are everything,
she picks apart Andy's outfit—
“What you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue.
It's not turquoise.
It's not lapis.
It's actually cerulean.”
proving to this young woman how an eye for detail is key
to unlocking a big-picture understanding of the world.
“That blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs.
And it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts
you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing a sweater
that was selected for you by the people in this room.”
The other key skill Miranda teaches Andy is resourcefulness.
“We have all the published Harry Potter books.
The twins want to know what happens next.”
“You want the unpublished manuscript?”
When you have someone standing over you demanding the impossible,
you're forced to find a way to make it happen.
“I know it's impossible to get but, well, I was wondering if you
could make the impossible possible.
If that's at all possible.”
Andy surprises herself with what she can accomplish
under intense pressure.
“It's Ambassador Franklin, and that's the woman
that he left his wife for, Rebecca.”
What we keep hearing throughout the movie
is that working for Miranda will open any career door.
“You work a year for her, and you can get a job at any magazine you want.”
At first we might think this is because of Runway's prestige,
but we come to realize that it's even more so about the qualities
that working for Miranda instills in you: resilience, a tireless work ethic,
and the commitment to go above and beyond.
“Oh, no, I made two copies and had them covered, reset and bound
so that they wouldn't look like manuscripts.
This is an extra copy to have on file.
You know, just in case.”
By the end, Andy emerges as a capable professional
ready to go after her dream of being a journalist—
something she wasn't equipped for at the beginning.
Lauren Weisberger, who wrote the book that The Devil Wears Prada
is based on after her stint as an assistant at Vogue,
has said that in spite of her struggles there, it was
“one of the most valuable times of [her] career”
because she got to learn from high-powered people
at the top of their game.
In addition to these valuable skills imparted by Miranda,
there's one key thing that Andy and Miranda have in common
from the beginning: self-respect.
When Andy starts at Runway, Miranda's senior assistant is Emily.
“I hope you know that this is a very difficult job
for which you are totally wrong.
And if you mess up,
my head is on the chopping block.”
Emily seems far more suited for this job, as she is fully committed to the work,
has a passion for fashion and worships the ground Miranda walks on.
“She's the editor in chief of Runway, not to mention a legend.”
But what she lacks is Andy's sense of self.
Emily would never dare to talk back to Miranda
or assert herself in a meaningful way—
“You may never ask Miranda anything.”
which is what Andy does.
Despite her poor performance at the job interview,
Andy refuses to be dismissed.
“I'm smart, I learn fast, and I will work very hard.”
And her faith in herself prompts Miranda to give her a second look.
The reason Andy's self-assurance sparks Miranda's interest
is that it reminds her of herself.
“There you are, Emily.
How many times do I have to scream your name?”
“A-actually, it's Andy.”
It's a key part of her perfectionist identity.
“You, with that impressive resume and the big speech
about your so-called work ethic, I, um, I thought you would be different.”
Through Miranda, the movie highlights the double standards
that working women face in their pursuit of perfection.
In the book, Weisberger based the Miranda character on her old boss,
Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour.
But for her performance in the film, Streep went in a different direction
by channeling men she knew in Hollywood, starting with Clint Eastwood.
“The fact that you don't raise your voice makes you much more scary.”
“I got that from Clint Eastwood.”
“Ohh”
“He never raises his voice on the set,
and there's no one more sort of intimidating.”
Streep explained that Eastwood's quiet tone of voice requires everyone
to “lean in to listen,” thereby making him
“the most powerful person in the room.”
[Whispers] “Have you gotten my note?”
Meanwhile she's said that Mike Nichols, who directed her in movies
like Silkwood and Heartburn, inspired Miranda's
biting wit and her ability to be both mean AND funny.
“They're showing a lot of florals right now, so I was thinking I could—”
“Florals?
For spring?
Groundbreaking.”
Many women of Miranda's generation had to develop a hard shell
to survive in a male-dominated workplace.
“The conversation of a raise is not inappropriate at this moment,
but do not be timid.
You presented like a man, now act like one.”
And they often had no choice but to emulate men in order to be accepted.
“Do you think I act like a man?”
“I guess you have to a little.”
Yet, even though Miranda's personality is based on men, the premise of this movie
would never work if the character actually WERE a man
because there's nothing novel or surprising about a powerful man
being demanding and cut-throat as he chases success.
“Okay, she's tough, but if Miranda were a MAN,
no one would notice anything about her, except how great she is at her job.”
In her world, Miranda is WELL-AWARE of how she's perceived.
“Just imagine what they're gonna write about me.
The Dragon Lady, career-obsessed.”
She knows people will judge her harshly for being an exceptionally powerful woman,
regardless of what she does.
“She's a notorious sadist.”
“Do you want me to say, 'Poor you.
Miranda's picking on you.'”
“She's just doing her job.”
Miranda's trademark look was inspired by model Carmen Dell'Orefice
and French lawyer Christine Lagarde.
But she also bears a striking resemblance
to another iconic working woman—
Cruella de Vil.
Cruella and Miranda are both self-assured, career-oriented fashionistas.
“You're fired!
You're finished!
You'll never work in fashion again!”
“If you don't go, I'll assume you're not serious about your future,
at Runway or any other publication.”
And the name “Cruella DeVil”— an only loosely camouflaged version of
“Cruel Devil,”
[Singing] “Cruella Devil, if she doesn't scare you no evil thing will.”
reminds us of Miranda, too, as she's openly cruel
and is also explicitly called “The Devil” in the film's title.
So what underlies the impulse to make this character-type THE BAD GUY?
Whether explicitly or via subtext, both of these characters
are vilified in their societies for not fitting neatly
into the role of the self-sacrificing domestic woman.
“I live for furs.
I worship furs!”
“Oh, I'd like a nice fur, but there are so many other things.”
“Sweet, simple Anita.”
“I sat there waiting for you for almost an hour.”
“I told you that the cell phones didn't work.
Nobody could get a signal out.”
So you could argue that Cruella and Miranda symbolize
the “EVIL” of being a CAREER WOMAN.
“More good women have been lost to marriage than to war, famine,
disease and disaster.
You have talent, darling.
Don't squander it.”
Their other sin is GETTING OLDER, and expecting to still be treated as relevant.
“Jacqueline's a lot younger than Miranda.
She has a fresher take on things.”
The Devil Wears Prada also uses Miranda
to explore the problem of work/life balance,
another area where women are judged by an unattainable standard.
"My personal life is hanging by a thread, that's all."
“Well, join the club.
That's what happens when you start doing well at work, darling.”
As soon as Andy starts succeeding, her relationship with her boyfriend,
Nate, hits the rocks.
“Your job sucks and your boss is a wacko.”
One thing that doesn't hold up so well about this 2006 film
is that the story ultimately frames Nate as “right” to object to the demands
of his girlfriend's career.
“I wanted to say that you were right about everything.”
A popular take in recent years is that Nate is the TRUE VILLAIN
of this story for not supporting Andy's career.
“You know, I wouldn't care if you were out there pole-dancing
all night as long as you did it with a little integrity.”
Like Nate, Miranda's husband isn't happy about coming in second
to his partner's career.
“I knew what everyone in that restaurant was thinking—
there he is, waiting for HER again.”
Miranda's commitment to being the best in her field
sometimes means RADICAL SACRIFICES in her personal life.
We watch her undergo a painful divorce.
“Snow Queen drives away another Mr. Priestly.”
But in the end, Andy manages to snag
the job she wants AND keep her man happy,
seemingly no longer having to worry about these kinds of trade-offs.
“Let me know when your whole life goes up in smoke.
That means it's time for a promotion.”
In the years since the movie came out in 2006,
there's been a backlash against the overly simplistic and idealistic
“having it all” narrative that Andy's happy ending perpetuates.
We might apply this critical eye to Andy's foreshadowed future
at the end of Devil Wears Prada.
Just because she's not working for Miranda now,
does that mean she's going to severely limit
her work hours to keep her boyfriend happy?
And if so, will this really get her to the top of her field as a journalist?
The unattainable ideal of “having it all” puts unhealthy PRESSURE on women
to excel in BOTH the work and home realms without letting anything
slide through the cracks.
Ironically, it's another form of PERFECTIONISM.
“Another disappointment.
Another letdown.”
Miranda proves the adage
that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Ultimately, her perfectionism is both her greatest strength and her fatal flaw.
A perfectionist's resting state is DISSATISFACTION
because in their eyes, things are never exactly right.
“And this layout for the Winter Wonderland spread,
not wonderful yet.”
So perfectionism can be a tyrant making
nothing ever feel good enough.
Streep even said that embodying Miranda
left her in a permanent bad mood on set.
“I think when you're a taskmaster and very very disciplined and controlling
that everything is not quite right… all the time.”
Miranda's staff also suffer due to her perfectionism.
“She is not happy unless everyone around her
is panicked, nauseous or suicidal.”
Her way of making people feel small and inadequate—
“No.”
ISN'T a good strategy in the long-run.
Studies have shown that happy employees are
actually more productive,
and that people who feel appreciated and respected
by their bosses are more likely to stick around.
So ironically, even though Miranda ensures that the work is flawless,
she falls far short of perfection as a leader.
“I really did everything I could think of—”
“That's all.”
Miranda's perfectionism is, at its core, a form of egocentrism.
After all, what constitutes “perfection” is subjective.
And in this world, perfect is really just whatever Miranda thinks it is.
“So because she pursed her lips, he's gonna change
his entire collection?”
“You still don't get it, do you?
Her opinion is the only one that matters.”
Eventually Andy realizes that she only wants to follow
this perfectionist mindset so far.
She gets a wake-up call after Miranda betrays Nigel,
Andy's beloved work ally who's looking forward to an amazing
opportunity to leave Runway.
He spots his freedom on the horizon.
“This is the first time in 18 years I'm going to be able to call the shots
in my own life.”
--
And this statement is a reminder that working for Miranda
requires a complete effacement of your own identity—
a point that's also underlined by everyone calling Andy
the wrong name for most of the movie.
“Emily.
Emily?”
“She means you.”
“Well, it was very, very nice to meet you, Miranda girl.”
In the end Miranda steals this opportunity from Nigel
to give it to Jaqueline Follet, in order to prevent Jaqueline
from taking HER position.
“When the time is right, she'll pay me back.”
“You sure about that?”
“No.”
Nigel is one of the few people Miranda actually respects and values.
“Zac Posen's doing some very sculptural suits.
So I suggested that Testino shoot them at the Noguchi Garden.”
“Perfect.
Thank God somebody came to work today.”
So if she's willing to do this to him, there's really no one she won't screw over.
Everyone else always comes a distant second to Miranda herself.
“You want this life, those choices are necessary.”
In the aftermath of this betrayal, when the words of praise Andy
has long desired from Miranda finally come,
“I see a great deal of myself in you.”
Andy takes them as an insult.
“I couldn't do what you did to Nigel, Miranda.
I couldn't do something like that.”
“You already did.
To Emily.”
She realizes that she has become Miranda,
not just in the good ways, but also in the total self-centeredness.
“I didn't have a choice.
You know how she is.”
“Please, that is a pathetic excuse.”
At the movie's table read, Streep changed Miranda's last line
in the car scene from “Everybody wants to be me” to,
“Everybody wants to be us.”
But Andy rejects Miranda's self-centered perfectionist
by-any-means-necessary value system.
In the moment on the red carpet when Miranda realizes her assistant
isn't obediently following behind her,
we can see shock subtly register on her face.
For once, someone didn't want to be her.
There might also be a small part of Miranda that's impressed by Andy here.
By separating from her mentor, Andy is following her own star,
and that means she's continuing to be a lot more
like Miranda than she even realizes.
In the end it's clear that the ex-boss respects the competent,
professional woman her protégée has blossomed into.
“Saying that of all the assistants she's ever had,
you were, by far, her biggest disappointment.
And, if I don't hire you, I am an idiot.”
And when she watches Andy in the final scene,
we gather from Miranda's expression that deep-down she's proud
and happy for this next-generation working woman,
who made it out of Runway with her humanity and core principles intact.
She may be her movie's villain, but Miranda Priestly is an icon.
“Where's Armani?
He's on the phone.
Too slow.
You're not going to Paris.
I'm so much better than you are.”
indisputably the best part of Devil Wears Prada—
“By all means, move at a glacial pace.
You know how that thrills me.”
And she achieves the kind of career success
most of us can only dream of.
Director David Frankel said,
“My view was that we should be grateful for excellence.
Why do the excellent people have to be nice?”
“Is there some reason that my coffee isn't here?
Has she died or something?”
What's so empowering about Miranda's character
is that her sense of superiority is earned.
And what everyone keeps telling Andy is true—
“Congratulations, young lady.
A million girls would kill for that job.”
it's a privilege to learn from this incredible woman
“Is it impossible to find a lovely, slender female paratrooper?”
“No.”
“Am I reaching for the stars here?
Not really.”
So we can learn from her to hold ourselves to lofty standards.
Even if we don't achieve perfection, we just might arrive at greatness.
“Is there anything else I can do?”
“Your job.”
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