Nigel: All right, everyone, gird your loins. Jono: Miranda is a narcissist. She believes that she deserves special treatment and sees others as existing to gratify her whims or to buoy up her own life mission and her own importance.
Miranda: Who are you? Andy: My name is Andy Sachs. Jono: Andy is getting sucked into it, and she let Miranda convince her that because you don't understand it, because you don't thrive here, you're no good unless you do.
Miranda: You ended up disappointing me, more than any of the other silly girls. Jono: What does it profit a person if they gain the whole world and lose their soul? You can have ambition, but if you put that before humanity, you become something else entirely.
Alan: You become a monster. Jono: You can choose another path. Alan: Hello and welcome to Cinema Therapy.
I'm Alan Seawright, a professional filmmaker who needs therapy. I'm joined by my co-host. .
. Jono: Jonathan Decker, licensed therapist who loves movies. What's going on today?
Alan: We're gonna talk about The Devil Wears Prada. -Alan: I think I'm gonna have you look at what it's like to work for a. .
. monster. Jono: Okay.
Alan: Manipulative, abusive, etc. . Sure.
Okay, Buzzwords. And. .
. Work life balance. Jono: Okay.
Bring it on. Alan: How to. .
. How to do it. Miranda: What do you think of it?
Nigel: Yeah. Well, you know me. Give me a full ballerina skirt and a hint of saloon and I'm on board.
Alan: Oh me too, Stanley. Me too. Nigel: Like the Lacroix from July?
I thought that, but no. Not with the right accessories. It should work.
Miranda: Where are the belts for this dress? Why is no one ready? Jocelyn: Tough call.
They're so different. Miranda: Mmm. Andy: [gigglesnorts] Miranda: Something funny?
Jono: I like Andy's Target fashion. Andy: No. Andy: No, no, no-- nothing's.
You know, it's just that both those belts look exactly the same to me. You know, I'm still learning about this stuff and, um. .
. Miranda: "This stuff"? Oh, okay.
I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back.
But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue. It's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns, and then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers.
-Miranda: And then it filtered down through the department stores. . .
Alan: This speech. . .
Miranda: . . .
trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you no doubt fished it out of some. . .
Alan: Even though she's being terrible, I love watching people be so exceptional at something that they can destroy another person without touching them. Miranda: . .
. choice that exempts you from the fashion industry, when in fact you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.
Alan: Hot damn. Ah, okay. Just.
. . Listen.
The script is phenomenal. It is dynamite. Without the script, Meryl Streep doesn't have something to deliver.
But what Meryl Streep does is say, From a pile of stuff, -Alan: and then turn as if she's less than nothing. Jono: Yeah. Alan: And she communicates all of it.
Jono: As if Andy's less than nothing. Alan: As if Andy is less than nothing. And she communicates all of that so quietly and so small without ever saying it.
This is one of the greatest all time cinematic performances. It's so good. Jono: Well, this isn't just about horrible bosses.
This is just about people in life who could treat you this way. It could be a parent. It could be someone at your church.
It could be someone at your health club. It could be someone at work. It could be any number of things w here you are treated like you are less than nothing by a person who is exceptionally arrogant.
When they're arrogant, but they can't back it up, it's easy just to laugh at them as an idiot. When they're arrogant, and they can. .
. Alan: They absolutely deserve to be. Jono: Yes, it's hard not to feel insecure.
Alan: Yes. Jono: It's hard not to feel, not just put in your place, but that you don't even have a place. Alan: Small.
Jono: Yeah, and Andy does feel very small in this. Andy: She hates me, Nigel. Jono: But there's a running thing in this film about Anne Hathaway being fat, or not thin.
Alan: Or not. . .
Yeah, Anne Hathaway being not thin or not attractive somehow. Jono: Yeah. Andy: Miranda hired me.
She knows what I look like. Nigel: Do you? Jono: And I wonder if that's a flaw of the film or part of it's critique of the fashion industry.
Alan: It is definitely a critique of the fashion industry. Jono: Andy was wonderful to begin with. Alan: Sure.
Jono: And she let Miranda, and this whole world that she didn't understand, convince her that because you don't understand it, because you don't thrive here, you're no good unless you do. Nigel: That's really what this multibillion dollar industry is all about anyway, isn't it? Inner beauty.
Jono: And then she starts to be assimilated, and she starts to fall in step with someone that's not her. And it costs her dearly. Gandalf: Woof woof woof!
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. . Gandalf: Woof woof woof!
[English: CINEMA] -Alan: That's CINEMA at checkout. Sundays for dogs turns your dog into a weird crack addict. Do you like Sundays?
Gandalf: Woof woof woof woof! Alan: He likes it. Richard: I'm just trying to understand why someone who got accepted to Stanford Law turns it down to be a journalist.
And now you're not even doing that. Andy: Dad, you have to trust me. Being Miranda's assistant opens a lot of doors.
Emily is going to Paris with Miranda in a few months, and she's going to meet editors and writers from every important magazine. And in a year that could be me. All right?
I swear this is my break. This is m-my chance. [phone starts ringing] -Andy: This is.
. . Alan: This scene is extremely relatable to me.
Andy: I'm sorry, dad, I have to take this. Hello, Miranda. Miranda: My flight has been canceled.
It's some absurd weather problem. I need to get home tonight. -Miranda: The twins have a recital tomorrow morning at school.
Jono: It's a hurricane. Alan: It's an actual hurricane. Miranda: At school!
Andy: Absolutely. Let me see what I can do. Miranda: Good.
-Miranda: Girls recital was absolutely beautiful. They played Rachmaninoff. Everyone loved it.
Everyone except me, because sadly, I was not there. Andy: Miranda, I'm so sorry. Miranda: Do you know why I hired you?
I always hire the same girl. Stylish. Slender, of course.
Worships the magazine, but so often they turn out to be. . .
. . .
disappointing and, um. . .
. . .
stupid. Jono: Oofff. Miranda: You with that impressive resume, -Miranda: and the big speech about your so-called work ethic, I.
. . Jono: Ouch!
Miranda: I thought you would be different. Anyway, you ended up disappointing me, more than any of the other silly girls. Andy: Um.
. . Alan: And again, Just the quiet.
. . Andy: I really did everything I could think of.
Alan: Uh, the quiet takedown. Miranda: That's all. Alan: And the dismissive, That's all.
Jono: Yeah. Alan: Oh, just a gut punch every time. Jono: There's a word that's very overused in today's pop psychology internet culture.
Alan: Is it "toxic" or "narcissist"? Jono: It's. .
. Both of those are. .
. Alan: Oh, okay. .
Jono: . . .
are overused and misused repeatedly by people not qualified to use them. Alan: Correct. Jono: Miranda is a narcissist.
She believes that she deserves special treatment. She is immune to the feelings and needs of other people. Miranda: Did you fall down and smack your little head on the pavement?
Jono: And sees others as existing to gratify her whims, or to buoy up her own life mission and her own importance. Andy: Okay, she's tough, but if Miranda were a man, no one would notice anything about her except how great she is at her job. Jono: There's a whole little universe that orbits around Miranda, -Jono: and Andy was blissfully outside of it.
Andy: Where's Miranda? Jono: And when she interacts with her father, with her boyfriend, with her friends, these people are blissfully outside it. I guess her friends are a little in awe, those who know fashion, but they have.
. . Alan: They are aware of it, but not inside it.
Jono: But they haven't been sucked into the orbit, right? Alan: Correct Nigel: Her opinion is the only one that matters. Jono: And Andy is getting sucked into it and allowing Miranda to determine her worth.
And Miranda determines Andy's worth based on her usefulness, and her ability to do the impossible, and sacrifice her own mental and emotional well-being and her own life. -Jono: To provide for the whims of Miranda. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: Every single person has the same worth. -Jono: You are a human being. Alan: Yep.
Jono: You have strengths and weaknesses. Now, you could say, well, My worth is determined by what I contribute. But is it though?
-Jono: Let's say I am a world famous athlete. Alan: Okay. Jono: And win championships for my team.
Shoe deals, got a lot of worth for my team, provide a lot of value to the shoe company that I signed the contracts with. I. .
. Alan: Hero to kids. Whatever.
Yeah. Jono: Hero to kids. -Jono: I get in an accident.
I'm a quadriplegic. Am I suddenly worth less than I was before? Alan: No, you're still a human being.
Jono: You're still a human being with a heart, with a mind, with a soul, and able to connect and grow and be and exist. Nate: Andy, what the hell is wrong with you? Andy: I didn't have a choice, okay?
I. . .
Miranda asked me and I couldn't say no. Nate: I know that's your answer for everything lately. "I didn't have a choice".
Like this job was forced on you. Like you don't make these decisions yourself. Andy: You're mad because I work late all the time.
And because I missed your birthday party, and I'm sorry. Nate: Oh, come on. What am I, four?
Andy: You hate Runway and Miranda. And you think fashion is stupid. You've made that clear.
Nate: Andy. I make port wine reductions all day. I'm not exactly in the Peace Corps.
You know, I wouldn't care if you were out there pole dancing all night, as long as you did it with a little integrity. You used to say this was just a job. You used to make fun of the Runway girls.
What happened? Now, now you've become one of them. Andy: That's absurd.
Nate: That's okay, that's fine. Just own up to it, and then we can stop pretending like we have anything in common anymore. Andy: You don't mean that.
Nate: No, I do. Andy: Maybe this trip is coming at a good time. Maybe we should take a break.
-Andy: Nate. . .
[phone ringing] Alan: It's so great. Andy: I'm sorry. Just.
. . One second.
Nate: You know, in case you were wondering, the person whose calls you always take, that's the relationship you're in. I hope you two are very happy together. Jono: Oof!
Alan: That's the kind of shit that I want to be able to say in the spur of the moment, which is why I need Aline Brosh McKenna to follow me around in real life. And just tell me what to say. That can be arranged.
Jono: "The person whose calls you always take, that's who you're in a relationship with". And that's, you know, I don't want to go cliché, but they always say, On your deathbed, you're not going to say, I wish I'd worked more. You're going to say, I wish I spent more time with my family or with my friends.
-Jono: And there's truth to that. Alan: Yeah. Jono: You know, don't get me wrong.
Like, work can be fulfilling. -Jono: I love what we do. Alan: I do too.
Jono: I love this, and it brings me a lot of satisfaction, a lot of joy. -Jono: But Andy has made her choice. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: And the thing is, she's not even happy about it. Alan: That's the thing. What he says, where, you know, Make it with some integrity.
Jono: Yeah. Alan: And we can split up. Absolutely.
People grow and grow apart sometimes. Jono: Yeah. Alan: You can get a new job and discover a passion for a thing and really want to pour yourself into it.
-Alan: She's in her early 20s. Jono: Yeah. Alan: You don't have to just commit to somebody and be with them forever.
Jono: Yeah. Alan: Come hell or high water at that point. Jono: And he's not saying we we have to be together or we can't break up.
He's saying, like what you're talking about, If you love this and you're going for it and it's what you want, and that means we don't work, go do it and I'm happy for you. -Jono: But he can see she's not happy. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: And so there's no integrity, -Jono: because she's betraying everything she stood for, for no reason. Alan: Right. Jono: Right?
Hoping that it'll open doors for her. But she's burning bridges everywhere. Emily: You know, you're the one who said you don't really care about this stuff, and you don't really care about fashion.
You just want to be a journalist. And what a pile of ballocks! Jono: Andy goes into this kind of blindly thinking she can have it all.
Andy: I just have to stick it out for a year. One year. And then I can do what I came to New York to do.
Jono: And I would say, if you know, you're gonna. . .
You want this job, you're going to get this job and you're going to sacrifice several years of your social life. And. .
. Alan: if you go into it, you know, not blind and you're like, hey, this is going to eat three years of my life, but that's okay, Alan: because it will unlock the next 30 years of my life. Jono: Yeah.
That's a sacrifice that a lot of people will be like, Yeah, okay. Miranda: First of all, we need to move Snoop Dogg to my table. Andy: But your table's full.
Miranda: Stephen isn't coming. Andy: Oh, Stephen is. .
. So I don't need to fetch Stephen from the airport tomorrow? Miranda: Well, if you speak to him and he decides to rethink the divorce, then yes.
Fetch away. We're very fetching, so go fetch. Jono: But Miranda is so trashed right now by this that she can't.
. . Miranda: .
. . get back to New York, we need to contact them.
Jono: She can't even quip. Miranda: Leslie. See what she can do to minimize the press.
Another divorce. Splashed across page six. Just imagine what they're going to write about me.
The Drgon Lady. Career obsessed. Snow Queen drives away another Mr Priestley.
I don't really care what anybody writes about me. But my. .
. my girls, I just. .
. It's just so unfair to the girls. It's just.
. . Another disappointment.
Another letdown. Another father figure. .
. Gone. Anyway, point is.
. . The point is.
. . The point is, we really need to figure out where to place Donatella, because she's barely speaking to anyone.
Jono: Back to business and the walls go back up. Alan: Well, she almost stepped into accountability -Alan: and then found a way to blame it on the husband who's leaving. Jono: Yeah.
Andy: I'm so sorry, Miranda. If you want me to cancel your evening, I can. Miranda: Don't be ridiculous.
Why would we do that? Jono: You know, a lot of it is the writing and direction, but it really feels like having this monster of a character be sympathetic and human is something. .
. Meryl is your perfect. .
. Alan: It takes an incredible actor to. .
. . .
. be this horrible person this entire time, and then let you in, to see that there's a soft, squishy middle somewhere inside that hard outer casing, and then immediately put the wall back up. Jono: And when Andy says, I can cancel your evening if you want, and Miranda says.
. . Miranda: Don't be ridiculous.
Why would we do that? Jono: I think Andy is seeing that Miranda is imprisoned in the life she's created for herself. Alan: Yeah.
Jono: And I think Andy sees how sad that is. You can have ambition, but if you put that before humanity, you become something else entirely. Alan: You become a monster.
Yeah. -Jono: Yeah. Jono: When you're dealing with manipulative, abusive bosses, you're generally dealing with people -Jono: who are manipulative and abusive in their other relationships.
Alan: Yeah. Jono: Which means the rest of their life is often a mess. And they put their value and their worth in their work, and they really need their work to go well, so they can point to something and say, Look at the great things I'm accomplishing.
Alan: It cost me all of this. . .
Jono: Yeah. Alan: . .
. but look at what I did. -Jono: Yeah.
Jono: What does it achieve? The applause and the fame and all of this, if you're unhappy. And if you can't look in the mirror and really like yourself.
Miranda: Truth is there is no one that can do what I do. Including her. Alan: Uh, narcissist?
Is that what that was? Jono: Mm-hmm. Alan: Okay.
Miranda: . . .
that job impossible and the magazine would have suffered. Especially because of the list. Designers, photographers, editors, writers, models.
All of whom were found by me, nurtured by me, and have promised me they will follow me. Whenever and if ever I choose to leave Runway. So he reconsidered.
Jono: We come back to, No one can do what I do. Miranda: I'm Very, very impressed by how intently you tried to warn me. I never thought I would say this, Andrea.
. . but I really.
. . I see a great deal of myself in you.
Alan: Shots fired. Miranda: You can see beyond what people want and what they need, and you can choose for yourself. Andy: I don't think I'm like that.
I. . .
I couldn't do what you did to Nigel, Miranda. I couldn't do something like that. Miranda: You already did.
To Emily. Andy: That's not what I. .
. Jono: Andy did something cutthroat to her friend. Alan: Yeah.
-Andy: I didn't have a choice. Alan: Miranda knows she's firing a kill shot right there. Miranda: You want this life, those choices are necessary.
Andy: But what if. . .
. . .
this isn't what I want. I mean, what if I don't want to live the way you live? Miranda: Oh, don't be ridiculous, Andrea.
Everybody wants this. Everybody wants to be us. Alan: And that is how you justify being a miserable person.
Jono: And doing terrible things to others. Alan: I've worked with people like this. People that are extremely successful and.
. . .
. . horrible.
Fortunately not very many, but I have worked with people like that. And they think. .
. This is what's important. This is what defines what a good person is.
And everyone wants this. Jono: I love. .
. I love how Meryl plays it when she's looking around for Andy, and completely shocked that she's not there. Alan: Because it just doesn't compute for her.
Jono: Yeah. Alan: That there could be someone who could achieve that, and wouldn't. Jono: Yeah.
Alan: Because that's not. . .
Again, back to the narcissism. Jono: Yeah. Alan: If you can do this thing, you must.
It's the only thing that matters. Jono: Yeah. In my opinion, if you're truly great, you recognize that there are people out there who can do what you do better.
You're a great example of this, if I can highlight. The first. .
. I don't remember how, at least a year, year and a half of our show was 100% edited by you. And at a certain point you said, I'd like to hire some editors and they're going to do it better than me.
And I remember thinking, I don't know that that's. . .
And then one of our editors did, like, his very first edit. I'm like, Yeah, this is better than you. Alan: This is better.
Jono: And you're like, I know, right? Alan: You're in a horror movie, woman! Jono: This is.
. . This is the Birds.
Alan: Get out! Alan: Run! Jono: This is a.
. . Alan: Don't smile!
Alan: This is a nightmare. Jono: But that's leadership. There's a phrase whose origins are theological, but I want to explore them in a way that is psychological, which is, What does it profit a person if they gain the whole world and lose their soul?
Emily: You sold your soul the day you put on that first pair of Jimmy Choos. I saw it. Jono: And I look at Andy and she's lost who she is.
Alan: Yep. Jono: And she's lost what made her happy. And she's lost what she's passionate about.
And when. . .
Alan: She gained Paris. Jono: She gained Paris. And she's there in Paris in this limo with a driver and these immaculate clothes.
Alan: The couture and all this stuff. Yeah. Jono: And she says, But what if I don't want this life?
And that, to me is so beautiful, because, as Miranda says. . .
Miranda: Oh, don't be ridiculous, Andrea. Everybody wants this. Jono: Most everybody kinda does until they count the cost.
Alan: Yeah. Jono: And a lot of people, including Andy, would rather have something simple and real. There's nothing wrong with a life of peace and prosperity.
-Jono: She liked her Target clothes. She chose her Target clothes because they were simple and real and practical, like her. Jono: And that's not a knock on anyone watching who loves high fashion or dresses very fashionable.
Alan: No, you do you. Jono: No, absolutely you do you. Jono: Do it with soul.
Do it with integrity, do it with decency. And like Andy does here, if you're being abused by your boss, -Jono: you don't have to stand for that. Alan: Right.
Jono: You can choose another path. -Jono: So, until next time. .
. Alan: Details of your incompetence do not interest me. Jono: Yes.
Please, proceed at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me. Internet Dads: And.
. . that's all.
Alan: We're so grateful to our Patrons who supported this episode. They get stuff, like extended Director's Cuts and a whole bunch of other things. People like.
. . Jono: Reuben McKay.
Alan: Carissa Cunningham. Jono: Samurai Gal. Alan: Carson Lambert, or Lambert.
Jono: Alice Špérová. Alan: Thanks, Patrons. Jono: We adore you.
Internet Dads: That's all.
