The Devil Wears MAGA
Twenty years later, we've changed -- and not for the better
It was another bruising week in America, nearly tipping us off once again into civil war, as the Devil Wears Prada 2 was released, turning brother against brother, as bickersome kin battled over who they more closely resembled, Miranda or Andy. (I consider myself a “Mirandy,” as a healer/consensus-builder.)
My wife asked me to go see it with her, and I agreed, even though I’m straight. We saw it in a theater of mostly African-American moviegoers, which I always enjoy, because black-audience dialogue directed at the screen is almost always way better than whatever’s happening on it. I don’t remember much about the movie proper, except that Stanley Tucci as Nigel sure is a sharp dresser. Also, physically going to a theater, which I only do about two or three times a year now, reminded me of how I’d like to go back to a simpler time, when a large popcorn and two Diet Cokes didn’t cost as much as dinner for four at a casual dining chain. And people wonder why theaters are dying. (Aside from all the cape’n’codpiece movies directed at 12-year-olds, and Americans no longer wishing to do anything that requires them to change out of their pajama bottoms.) With runaway concession-stand inflation, you’d think hot-buttered snacks came through the Strait of Hormuz.
Without boring you with plot recaps (this is not a film review), the story about life at a high-fashion magazine in decline touched on a lot of themes: the tricky nature of friendship, aging, the collapse of magazines, which I know a little something about, having been a magazine writer for most of my adult life. It was a vocation many of us print jockeys suspected wouldn’t get us over the finish line when seeing videos like this one, of babies trying to swipe pages instead of turn them:
Of course, our worries about the death of reading among Gen Alpha, or whatever generation we’re on (as a Gen X slacker, I don’t actually care), were greatly overstated. The Mini-Millennials read all the time: TikTok captions, the side of their Adderall prescription bottle, etc. “Anything you lose comes round in another form.” I believe Rumi said that. Or maybe a Caribou Coffee cup did. Sometimes, inspiration is a blur.
But as is often the case around here, I digress. (Come for the digressions, stay for whatever fits in between them.)
I didn’t go see this sequel to take in the fabulous fashion, even if that has become synonymous with my name. (I was wearing jorts long before they were cool.) More interesting was the time-warp aspect of it, the reflection lent by a nostalgia ride. The original Devil Wears Prada came out exactly 20 years ago. And my, how we’ve changed since then: