A Feminist GenZ Review of “The Devil Wears Prada 2”

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As a GenZ faced with environmental destruction, unstable politics, and the tradwife movement, I was born to practice sarcasm the way that my parents’ generation dealt with cigarettes. I predict that, if things do not go down the drain, my generation will be faced with withdrawal symptoms from our own cynicism.

How fortunate that movies like The Devil Wears Prada 2 exist these days, which are a celebratory firework of lightweight entertainment, dressed in heavily pretentious gowns that actually go much further than just skin-deep.

In this piece, I will analyze the layered plastic beauty of this movie and how a 20-year sequel can maybe not overcome its predecessor’s glory, but add meaningfully to its development and societal relevance.

Spoiler-Alert: As is evident, this is a fangirl’s bible. So if you haven’t watched the movie, be warned, because I am not in a habit of apologizing for oversharing. Thanks.

The death of media

The first The Devil Wears Prada movie in 2006 was highly anticipated, due to its spikey commentary on Anna Wintour at VOGUE and the insight it gave into the performative fashion industry. Alongside this, viewers experienced the more “serious” nature of journalism and publishing. This is the tapestry of the world the character “Andy” was made to inhabit.

It is true that if Andy were a real journalist, her life would hardly have become any easier over the last 20 years, and luckily, the film did make the digitalization of journalism a central plot point.

Notably, not just the publishing industry but the entire society has changed. Runway is now barely a print medium anymore. The movie portrays with painful accuracy how the realities of artistry in the digital age have shifted, but there is still space for creation, somewhere.

The rules have changed: Digital creation and marketing move to the forefront, “serious journalism” is under heavy pay cuts, and the lines between information and advertisements are treacherously fluid. Creativity fills the cracks of this mosaic of modern disasters, which is embodied by Nigel (my favorite character) in the movie. Another cynic with surgical precision.

The second movie is a grim story for writers, especially because, as we learn at the beginning, our main character is about to receive a grand award for journalism, seconds after she was fired via text message. She is unmarried, not reasonably attached to any man, and has frozen her eggs. This is a sarcastically realistic portrayal that we are not expected to pity.

The most honest moments of the movie happen when “the new Emily” (portrayed by none other than Simone Ashley) cautions Miranda to use more “modern adequate” language, or when Andy catches Miranda struggling to hang up her own coat because “interns complained”. These scenes form the most bitter-sweet sugarcoat over the fact that, clearly, Miranda still practices body-shaming and is ill-natured, but even the devil wearing Prada in 2026 has to at least try to pretend to be kind.

As the head of Runway, Miranda symbolizes how “body positivity” is still merely a marketing tool, rather than a lived belief in the fashion industry. This is highlighted when she says the following words at a meeting, subtly hinting that inclusivity is not her business.

Miranda Priestly:“Some of the bodies are very interesting. Very body… negative?”

How Simone Ashley’s character treats the other workers, specifically the poor Charlie, who is constrained to his chair to the extent that he is not allowed to go to the toilet, is another clever way that the movie ensures we all know: The aesthetic might have changed, but it is merely a glimmering coat on the same age-old structures.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 again masterfully plays with high-profile women, taking each other down over the clothes that seem too simple and yet too deep all at once. But it adds a new insight into the skeleton holding Runway together: The CEO’s.

The structure of wealth

The most interesting addition that the sequel makes to the world around Andy and Miranda is that we get an insight into who exactly pays Miranda. For the first time, she is not holding the reins solely on her own accord, rather we find out that she is struggling to climb the ladder herself.

We get to know the man behind a conglomerate of magazines, who, unsurprisingly, is a white man living in unprecedented luxury. His son takes over the screen after his father suddenly dies at an event, which instilled not the smallest feelings of pity in me.

I guess as a feminist, it would be nice to see a female CEO spearheading the company, but I can’t help but see that the way the movie portrays the rich and powerful as almost exclusively male, aside from Lucy Liu (who tries to evade the spotlight and yet saves the day), is more realistic.

It becomes apparent that Miranda is just a part of a larger machinery, and the role that Emily Blunt plays by trying to more or less “fuck her way up” is another cynical, exaggerated portrayal of reality in my eyes. The way that both Emily’s character’s rich boyfriend and the young CEO ordering Runway around are portrayed is fascinating and possibly a self-fulfilling prophecy. They are both idiotic and yet not incompetent men, but certainly greedy in a way that is naive to ethics.

I personally would be very curious which real-life people these characters were modelled after.

The most appalling feature of how wealth is portrayed in the movie was something I can only describe as “rich blindness”. In a scene where Miranda is shoved into the economy-class airplane seat, the entire cast complains about their dire circumstances. Such scenes repeat themselves as a way to show that their budget is being cut, and the viewer is expected to laugh.

I scoffed. Even as I sifted through the initial review of The Devil Wears Prada 2 in the New York Times, I read that the writer of the opinion piece there complained about “straining her neck in the first row with her daughter” because the tickets had sold out that fast. I really hope this was sarcasm, because as a matter of fact, much of this world at the moment cannot afford a cinema ticket.

I guess these complaints are made for the rich and ignorant.

I watched this movie in Taiwan with my Filipino friend, and I felt the stark contrast of how the people around me looked at the screen: Like they were scenes from an alien planet. As a European girl who had been to the places in the movie, I had a slightly different angle on this, especially as I discussed the plane scene with my friend later.

I said: “Isn’t it crazy that business class even exists? That one seat, that could house four economy seats, is given to one person merely because of money?”

She answered: “Well, that’s how the airplane companies make money.”

I argued: “Yes, but they could certainly also make money from four economy seats. I think it would be more ethical because more people could afford to travel.”

She replied: “But I would pay for business class too for a long flight to be more comfortable.”

I was stunned.

There was this Filipino girl, empathizing with Miranda over a business class airplane ticket she herself would likely never buy, rather than even allowing herself to think that the very system that disadvantages her could be challenged. Earlier, she’d explained how “passportism” hits her so hard that she can’t even take an airplane across continents, unless she can pay for an expensive visa and some rich advantages.

I guess as much as there is “rich blindness,” there is also the “poor blind spot” that keeps the exact structures of wealth that disadvantage people in their place. It is stunning and devastating, all the learnings one can derive from one simple movie.

Is “The Devil Wears Prada 2” reviving the girlboss era?

The strongest scene between Miranda and Andy happens toward the end of the movie. I will admit, I shed a few tears as I heard Miranda say the following words to Andy, as she encouraged her to write a book:

You should write it. And you should keep all the juicy bits in. How impatient I am and demanding and imperious. And, you know… how much of my children’s lives I’ve missed. Just put it all in there. Because people should know. They should know there’s a cost. But boy, I love working. I really do. Don’t you? — Miranda Priestly

As a GenZ who grew up throughout the girlboss era in the 2010s and is now faced with tradwives and the softness of the “feminine” girl’s girl, rather than feminists, my heart was beating for those simple words.

I love working.

Not: I work tirelessly and get exploited by the very structure I am aiming to break until the point that I eventually need to seek help from a health professional to avoid a “quick and efficient suicide” (quote Miranda), because the shards of the broken glass ceiling above me cut a bit too deep.

That was one hell of a sentence, but it is intended to be read and re-read in a frenzy. I apologize. In my head, it reads as a Lizzo-style rap.

This girlboss sentiment, in its crystallized version, is very much the main hinge of the first movie in 2006. Andy, the girl who wants to become a successful writer, is thrown a curveball by life as she starts working not only for Runway but also under an impossible boss. It is her persistence and work ethic that lead to the resolution of the conflict in the movie.

The second movie in 2026 doesn’t repeat this false fallacy. Andy is an established journalist, struggling with her own ethical compass in a world that seems to have lost its north star. Persistence and hard work over 20 years have not earned her a fancy apartment or a secure paycheck, but rather a broken faucet and some frozen egg(cells).

She is stuck in the hamster wheel of corporate life, just as much as the viewer comes to realize, her boss, Miranda.

But instead of becoming the epic “breaking free of corporate hell” story that is sold across social media, the happy ending in this story is not quitting your job and selling your soul online, 30 seconds at a time.

Despite all the ups and downs of the movie (which were arguably not as deep and treacherous as The Devil Wears Prada 1, I think we should have mercy), Miranda decides at the end that she still loves her job. Miranda loves being a bitchy boss, despite the challenge and change, and Andy loves not abusing her relationship with her boss by signing a multi-thousand-dollar book deal.

And even if she does in the future, I am sure she wouldn’t leave Miranda out in the rain completely.

Beauty and the corporate beast?

I love that the central plot of this movie still is not about Andy finding love, which would have been an easy emotional lever to pull. The producers still decided to let the new man in Andy’s life play a role along the fringes of the narrative, where they have a cute romance that yes, allows for a romantic happy ending, but one that only coincidentally falls into place after Runway is saved.

It is the narrative of a 21st-century woman in love, who fixes her life before finding a man who can stand alongside her, hold her hand, but not become the enabler or emotional crutch of her life. It seems that maybe, just like men, women could live a life where they separate family and work, while giving both equal importance.

So I thank the makers of The Devil Wears Prada 2 for instilling a feeling in my young body that GenZers rarely find in the digital media jungle: Hope.

Hope that while women don’t choose between job and family anymore, having to juggle both is hard but not entirely impossible, and neither is finding fulfilment in work as a woman, despite it still weighing heavily with societal guilt for what we “miss”.