The Devil Wears Prada, Essay Example

“The Devil Wears Prada” is a comedy-drama movie set in the fashion world, released in 2006, and based on a Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel of the same name. It tells a story of Andy Sachs, a recent college graduate and fledging journalist played by Anne Hathway, who moves to New York City in the pursuit of job, and eventually gets hired as a co-assistant to Meryl Streep starring as an authoritative and severe fashion magazine editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly.

Runway is a large company employing numerous staff. However, I found it difficult to identify two or three Theory X employees. As far as I observe, all the characters in the movie are more likely to represent Theory Y employees. They all seem to have far-reaching ambitions, committed to personal objectives, seek responsibilities, are self-directed and hard-working. The only person whose motivation is open to doubt is probably Doug, Andrea’s college friend who seems to occupy a position of a corporate research analyst. Doug claims his work to be boring, and obviously tends to be liking other spheres of business, such as fashion, for instance. There is, however, little information about him presented in the movie, so it is impossible to confidently assume he fits into Theory X employee category.

Andrea’s case is not typical, so should better be discussed individually. In my opinion, Andie, who is a fledging journalist, starts off by being a Theory X employee, and eventually transforms into a Theory Y employee. Young girl is obviously ambitious and hard-working. However, she fails to reveal own potential when starting to work as co-assistant in Runway. She values the occupied position only because of future career opportunities it might open. She does not see herself working for fashion magazine for the rest of her life and just wants to hold out in the company for a year, and then leave in the pursuit of more attractive prospects. She alters her opinion in the course of the movie, however. Young girl faces the challenges and starts to enjoy dealing with tricky tasks. She reconsiders initial skepticism and shows herself as being highly inventive and resourceful.

The leadership style demonstrated by Miranda Bristly, a fashion industry business-obsessed ‘devil’, is undoubtedly Autocratic. As a supervisor, Mrs. Priestly is extremely strict, uncompromising, willful, capricious, unforgiving and immoderately exacting. “Runway’s” editor-in-chief performs autocratic decision-making throughout the course of the movie. There are, however, several scenes when the nature of her supervision is displayed most evidently. For instance, such is the scene of a company staff meeting on account of February Runway issue magazine. Not only is she rude and boldly skeptical about her subordinates’ ideas and suggestions, but also does not actually give them an opportunity to speak out, to discuss the brought up issues, to participate in decision making. She does not let her staff feel as if being a team.

Miranda is in absolute control and no one is allowed to make any proposals or put forward any considerations, regardless of whether it may do good to the whole group. Whether her ways are effective or not is an open question. The magazine is run successfully by Priestly; Runway prospers and maintains a high reputation in the fashion industry. It is possible, however, that more friendly work environment, adherence to corporate ethics and conditions favorable to team work and creativity, would benefit the company and promote it to the new, challenging levels.

Even though most characters in the movie reveal themselves as being highly motivated and ambitious, there are moments when some of them fail to demonstrate optimism and resourcefulness. Such is the case with Andie. At the first part of the movie, we observe young girl greatly depressed by the troubles she face when trying to perform well at work. Even though I failed to identify phrases that perfectly fit the given list of words exposing underachievers, there were some, however, uttered by newborn assistant, which do indeed reveal a negative treatment and lack of belief in own abilities. These are, for instance, “I do not know what else I can do”, “I did everything I could think of”, “I am killing myself trying”, “I failed. She is going to fire me anyway”, etc.

The one individual who is motivated to work in Runway more than anyone else is obviously Miranda Priestly. She is an intriguing character indeed. Her attitude to a job, as well as her enthusiasm, is unlike that of others. I believe her motivation can be best explained by McClelland’s Achievement-Power-Affiliation Theory.  Miranda falls into the category of people, who strive for authority. Her greatest need and her primary motivating factor are power. Runway’s editor-in-chief is obsessed with control; she seeks responsibility and enjoys her ability to manipulate anything and anyone she is willing to influence. She is brilliant at running the magazine, she knows it and will not let anyone take it away from her.

The most instructive case of not performing up to the expectation is Emily’s failure. Working as Miranda Priestly’s senior assistant, young woman cherishes a hope of accompanying Runway’s leader to Paris for Fall Fashion Week. She, however, messes up several Miranda’s assignments, and gets replaced by Andrea, who manages to perform successfully. Why does this experienced haughty girl fail though? Emily is not a typical problem employee. She does not miss the job, avoid responsibilities, abuse alcohol or drugs, she is obedient and smart. Her problem is not among those typically encountered by supervisors when dealing with poor performance.

Emily fails because of the expectations raised to high. She suffers from poor time management and incapability to delegate the tasks effectively. Dealing with too much stress at work she ends up experiencing a distress, accompanied by physical and behavioral malfunctions. This problem is the one most Runway employees seem to face. Nervous and physical exhaustion caused by stressful working environment results into poor performance. The very first scene when we first meet Miranda is quite revealing: observing how all the workers run around the office like headless chickens tidying up their working places and themselves too look appropriately appearing before their boss’ sight, is enough to  realize how these people manage everyday strain.

Andrea is no exception. This young journalist, rushing through the New York at the constant risk of receiving an injury, suffers from inability to manage her time effectively and deal with stress wisely. Andrea’s problem is that she often fails to distinguish between low- and high-priority tasks. We observe her becoming more self-confident and thus more successful at work when she finally learns to fulfill some of the duties in advance. Moreover, most of responsibilities thrust on her by Miranda, such as doing twins’ homework, for instance, are improper. Obviously, Andrea is unable to say ‘no’ when appropriate.

The stressful atmosphere at Runway is generally caused by factors of policies and processes. These are the unrealistic job description; inflexible rules; unfair performance reviews; poor communication; inadequate feedback about performance; unfair control system; inadequate information; ambiguous instructions, etc. As has already been mentioned, both Andrea and Emily seem to be working under the greatest stress, mostly due to regular and unavoidable dealings with their boss. Runway policies introduced by Miranda, which obviously lack fairness and flexibility, naturally cause employees’ deepest dissatisfaction.

The power Miranda exercises comes from various sources. First of all, the power she holds is legitimate, as she occupies a lawful position of Runway editor-in-chief given to her through the board chairmen’s agreement. Miranda represents Runway on the fashion events; she is a generally accepted leader of the magazine. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Priestly holds an expert power. With the mere pursing of her lips she can make a professional designer change his entire collection. Runway’s editor-in-chief is well-feared by most people she has ever met, and especially by those whose future career depends on her attitude. She obviously uses a threat of punishment and thus exercises coercive power. Her continuously repeated threats to destroy Andie’s career in case of poor performance are quite informative.

Nevertheless, Miranda also happens to turn to a reward source of power. For instance, such is the case with Fashion Week in Paris. Definitely, Priestly frequently uses her access to influential people to get what she wants. We observe how she retains her position in company with the help of mysterious list, containing the names of famous designers, photographers, models, writers, whom she claims to discover, and who have guaranteed her their unconditional loyalty. Miranda is also a considerable source of information power. Manipulating people and influencing their fortunes she possess confidential information which she uses for own benefit. Miranda is hardly liked by her colleagues, but one cannot ignore the fact that she is well-respected and admired in the fashion industry circles, so somehow, she also possesses a referent power. Miranda Priestly is, therefore, supports her position by all the possible sources of power available for a human being.

I loved the movie, and I would certainly recommend it for the next Supervision class. The plot is thrilling and provides an exciting plunge into the fashion industry.  Meryll Streep is absolutely gorgeous in her personification of a business-obsessed fashion monster. As too the other movies I would recommend for future classes, I find “Up in the air” starring George Clooney, and “Working Girl” starring Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver, quite appropriate.

Works Cited

The Devil Wears Prada. Dir. David Frankel. Prod. Wendy Finerman, and Karen Rosenfelt. 20th Century Fox, 2006.