Actually, Maybe Right Now is the Perfect Times for the 'Devil Wears Prada' Sequel

I’ll admit it: As a recovering magazine industry girlie, The Devil Wears Prada has always inspired a touch of anxiety in me. I can still remember what it felt like to be surrounded by people who very much upheld toxic hustle culture. The magazine industry, at least as I remember it, exemplified the type of work culture we’ve finally grown critical of, and when I heard that we’d get a sequel of the movie, I wondered how it would address this cultural shift. In an era of finally recognizing the people who make workplaces feel kind of hellish, how would the film’s iconic bad boss Miranda Priestley play out? 

The Devil Wears Prada is a fairly realistic look at what really went down in the offices on some of your favorite glossies back in the aughts. But why make a sequel now, when hustle culture has been confronted, when the magazine industry is dying, and a full 20 years after the original film?

Once I started seeing commentary about the sequel roll in, though, it made perfect sense. We’ve overcorrected hustle culture so much, we’ve veered into the moment of romanticizing tradwife content. 

The Devil Wears Prada is essentially about working for a boss who demands so much of you, you have to sacrifice your personal life — or in Andy Sachs’s case, your romantic life. The sequel isn’t a cautionary tale about what happens to women to do that. Instead, it’s a celebration of the fact that for a lot of women, happily ever after isn't about the husband and the kids and the white picket fence. I don’t love extremes, but sometimes, in order to tell a story, you have to really go there. And in a time in which women are receiving regressive messages, maybe this storyline is important. 

Andy Sachs, as people are pointing out, is happily single and childfree in her 40s. Instead of warning women to not ever prioritize their career for fear of “ending up miserable and alone”, the sequel says “there are actually wonderful possibilities for women that have nothing to do with taking the traditional path”.

I am someone who did reject hustle culture. I got married, I had kids, I left the bustling world behind for a more flexible career, one that allows me to be a very present, hands on mom. 

That was the right path for me. But you know what? We have enough representation of this path. Let’s take a moment to shine a light on this sequel for spotlighting another equally valid one.