Devil Wears Prada: A portrait, a veritable parable, of modern America!

Rating: 10/10 (28 July 2006)

"The 'Devil' Wears Prada" and the Flies the Most Glamorous and Formidable Jet Fighters I went to see "The Devil Wears Prada" this afternoon. It was very good, very entertaining. Mainly and initially I was interested in the psychology of the fashion world. Of course, I knew pretty much about this already because TV is saturated with it. Also, I had a woman friend, really two in fact, in Dallas who were involved in its Fashion Mart during the seventies and eighties and told me a lot about it. It is a ruthlessly competitive world. Everyone in it plays the game and plays to the status cravings of everyone else. This drive combines with the uncanny ability to cast a bigger spell, a more compelling mystic, and to be more convincing in presenting one's creations than one's rivals. Nevertheless, this drive propels these fashion gladiators to use stealthy throat cutting, back stabbing. Since they cannot be blatant with their unprincipled competition, they resort to Machiavellian deviousness, manipulation, and sabotaging. The tautness of these opposites of stylishness and ruthlessness can result in implosive stress. It can also result in beastly mutual psychological ruination, especially among their insufficiently calloused underlings. All the while they must learn to be coyly dedicated to setting the stage for ripping off obeisant devotees in a conspicuous consumption contest. The game, like all sports, is infectious. Now, an unexpected stage is set for a different set of incompatibilities. Enter a young, beautiful, brilliant, ambitious college graduate with bountiful belief in herself, self acceptance, empathy, and having that crucial element of worldly innocence. Wham! 'Classical' American wholesome meets 'modern' American superficial, frenzied, duplicitous, and winner takes all fashion society. Just that tad of ambition in her is enough to seduce her into this alien whirlwind. At first blush of le style d'un moderne in her appearance, her friends suspect an incipient seduction in the making. She resents their hints that she will inevitably succumb to Siren's beguile. The dizzying aura and commanding magnetism of her boss, challenging her capabilities, ensnares her and she takes up the gauntlet. Bit by bit she forces herself to learn to garner admiration and envy in the glamor game until, seduction almost complete, she is on the brink of becoming the person she initially reviled, her boss. At this moment of truth the submerged wholesome girl emerges with its fill of repressed revulsion bursting out. Her epiphany is grasping the toll on her idealistic soul of this mischievous and counterfeit fashion rat race. Among their not so fortunate and unwary clientèles, on the other hand, the enticement of this fashion world everlastingly and irresistibly sets off ever so subtle but nonetheless horribly loathsome, invidious comparisons and wretchedly demeaning rivalries. Yet, these fawning patrons persist in following religiously. For, in the end, the fashion world could not exist without this dynamic. This is psychological Darwinianism at its pinnacle of calculated maliciousness. Only the most hardhearted, ruthless, cunning cutthroats among the would-be fashion titans survive and ascend. Those who relish being, have the talent, and can convey that special air of ultimate authority as trend setter rise to and endure at the top as high priestesses and nigh sacred icons of the business. These people draw money capitals to their door and can cause currencies to course around the planet. These fashion moguls reap fortunes off the shallow envy of the appearance junkies which they create. With their diamonds and sapphires dangling, they thrive on the wasted heaps of glitter and rhinestone style-mongering idiots who bankrupt themselves while trying to keep up with the latest and most sheik creations from these artists in the craft of facade. But, if you want an understanding of the heart of American culture, here is where you will find it. Ironically, one can apply this same description, this same socio-psychology, to our defense industry, military leaders, politicians, lobbyists, academicians, professionals of all types, and yes even our clergy, and, woefully, you and I, along with the rest of our fellow Americans. Americans are status junkies who believe in one manifestation or another of this competitiveness and ambition for status, power, wealth, and fame, as though 'it' were the ultimate religion. Sadly, however, it is not just winning but is also beating, and defeating any and all comers, that is the prize we seek. Toward this 'holy' end, any means you can get away with is justified. Defeat of and one-upping one's rivals, and even one's friends, is the true religion of Americans. Adhering to the good old American sportsmanship code is necessary, outwardly, of course. Doing this, as winners, must be done not too gleefully and with grace and a barely detectable, demurely condescending, contempt for the losers. This art is also a major requirement in this religion. 'A spoonful of insipid, sugary diplomacy may help the 'poison' go down'. Of course, one must learn to keep one's disdain for the losers inconspicuous, somewhat like a genteel, beneficent serial killer, a Dr. Hannibal Lectern in lace, if you will. One must, however, be a true believer in the arts of this uniquely indigenous religion. Furthermore, one must be true to that religion even if it means destroying the hearts and values of masses of fellow humans and ultimately, in the process, results in consuming and destroying the earth. These hyenas of the fashion jungle, whether in the world of adornment, or any other industry, cannot just momentarily stop their ravenous quest for dominance, victory, or stardom long enough to take stock of themselves or to consider the futility of their addiction and its awful consequences on the hearts and souls of their victims, and the health of the earth as well, while doing so. After all, being number one is all that matters! And everyone, as Miranda so heroically and gallantly says, just before the movie's curtain time, "That's silly. Everyone wants to be us." Yes, deep down, everyone wants to be the envy of everyone, right?