The Devil Wears Patriarchy

Feminism is dead. Patriarchy was incinerated along with Greer’s bra right? Well to anyone who is inclined, however vaguely, to agree with these sentiments I present one simple challenge. The chick flick. Don’t get me wrong, much of my pubescent education came courtesy of Richard Curtis and early noughties Hollywood. In fact, back in my yoof, a film was only worth watching if it featured a) a woeful play on words-y title, b) some kind of dancing/ dance-school narrative, c) a wedding, or d) Matthew McConaughey/Julia Roberts/Jennifer Lopez or any of the former cast of Friends.

This week, I was reminded of this adolescent ardour for girly films after viewing the plethora of “sneak preview” pictures from what will, doubtless, be the chick flick to end all chick flicks, the forthcoming Sex and the City film. Given the by-law that every English-speaking girl, woman or gay-man just LOVES the TV Series Sex and the City, it goes without saying that I can’t wait for the film. Or can I?

The teaser photographs, for those of you too highbrow to bother, include some of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) in a wedding dress, presumably at her wedding to Mr Big. Now, fabulous as Carrie’s dress is (like, d’uh!) I’m not sure how I feel about the prospect of her getting married. Despite what a few humourless and desiccated academics might try and tell you, Sex and the City is generally considered pretty important in terms of what it brings to the tables of both post-feminist and queer cultural discussion.

With this in mind, it seems slightly out of keeping that self-obsessed, stubbornly single, post-modern icon Carrie would cave to such a conservative thing as marriage. It’s not that I’m opposed to the idea in principle, but it did start to ring alarm bells that Hollywood’s take on Sex and the City could be set to betray its original source material to the detriment not only of the film, but to its target audience. Of course, it won’t be the first time this has happened when Hollywood gets its glitzy mits on something, (Keira Knightley in Pride & Prejudice anyone?) but to my mind, nowhere is this betrayal so great and the result so nauseating as it is where the chick flick is concerned.

Not convinced? In that case, I present my second challenge: Watch The Devil wears Prada (dir. Frankel 2006). Based on Lauren Weisberger’s best-selling novel, it was one of the most eagerly awaited films of last year. Yet what confounded me was how a film that took its cue from a wickedly arch and satirical novel and was blessed with intelligent performances from its leading ladies (Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt) managed to be so conservative and devoid of any critical intellect.

Having both sped through the novel faster than any Topshop/Designer/Celebrity Collaboration tends to leave the rails, it was with eager anticipation that me and my mother sat down to watch the film when it finally arrived (on DVD that is…my mother refuses to go to the cinema because it precludes her from doing the ironing/sewing whilst she watches. I wish I was kidding.) However, as my mother settled into some embroidery and I into a family size bar of dairy milk, the film emerged as the distinctly duller-witted sister to Weisberger’s literary debut, albeit one with a snazzy wardrobe.

It can be unfair to draw out in depth comparisons between book and film, but Hollywood’s treatment of DWP is unforgivable. It removed the delicious sarcasm of the novel and, what’s worse, imposed its own hegemonic recuperations onto the story. Weisberger’s “Devil” is fictional magazine Runway’s editor-in-chief, Miranda Priestly. Like any satisfactory demon, she is seductive and loathsome in equal measure. However, for the makers of DWP, the “Devil” portrayed isn’t simply Miranda (Streep), in fact the film goes to great lengths to soften the über-demanding persona of the novel by inventing a marital breakdown subplot. Instead, the “Devil” is the ambitious Andy (Hathaway) and, by extension, career women everywhere. DWP, for all its gloss, handbags and on-the-pulse costuming by the fabulous Patricia Field (coincidentally, of Sex and the City fame) is basically a filmic manual setting out a doctrine of what is acceptable conduct for women.

Superficially the film seems to speak in defence of the driven woman. The denouement of the film (so altered from the book) shows Miranda’s difficulty to hang on to a husband given her success. Likewise, Andy raises the point that if Miranda were a man, no-one would question her unreasonable demands, they would just acknowledge her aptitude for her job. However, just as Andy, and the audience, begins to sympathise with Miranda, the filmmakers have her stab a friend in the back to save her own skin. The film also treats Andy’s success critically; she is likened to Miranda and presented as having lost all integrity in her usurpation of Emily (Blunt). Supposedly we are meant to forget, momentarily, that the aforementioned Emily is a snooty, snidey sort of bint who has made Andy’s life hell up until now. Andy herself is horrified when this accusation is levelled at her and leads directly to her resignation from Runway. Yet, in reality, all she did was to take a colleague’s place on a work trip instead of losing her own job.

The film contains other patriarchal impositions as to the sexual conduct and appearance of women. Film buffs have long since talked of how sexually promiscuous women inevitably end up being punished by the events of a movie and DWP is no exception. Literally as she is dressing following a one-night stand with a well-known writer, Andy discovers her bed-fellow is part of a plot to oust Miranda from Runway, which, issues of loyalty aside, would probably put Andy, as Miranda’s assistant, out of a job as well. Furthermore, while Weisberger’s Andy stalwartly refused to partake in any of the fad diets of her skinnier Runway counterparts, the film sees Andy triumphantly toasting her new “size four ass” with colleague Nigel as the film draws to a close.

But the worst thing of all? DWP is, of course, shamelessly marketed as a chick flick. That such a film, with its patriarchal trappings, is aimed explicitly at women is worrying. Melodramatically, Andy is criticised in the film for “selling her soul (for) purses and shoes”. Perhaps by allowing themselves to be seduced by this film, and any others that may follow in its designer footsteps, the female of the species would be doing exactly that.

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