Did Lauren Weisberger Betray Anna Wintour by Writing The Devil Wears Prada or Did a Demanding and Difficult Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Deserve a Tall Latte in the Face?
There was a slightly different cast of characters in the multiplex Chelsea Cinema in New York City this weekend when I plopped down in a leg-stretching aisle seat to see The Devil Wears Prada. Usually the seats are 95% empty at the 11:30 a.m. show, but yesterday there was a clutch of girly men and the fashion-conscious and moi all sharing the theater with my early bird buddies—the snoring, wind-breaking, mumbling senior citizens escaping the stifling heat of their unair-conditioned, rent controlled apartments. I, too, just love the blast of icy air that blows my hair straight back when I wrench open the doors to the entrance of the movie theater. Nothing I like better than seeing my breath in the frosty air of a movie theatre and having ice particles form on the tips of my eyelashes in July. Pass the coke, popcorn and forbidden candy bars!
The Devil Wears Prada was the first novel written by 26-year-old Lauren Weisberger. Whew! What a stir that book and now the movie have caused. The movie is such a hoot because it caricatures Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue. Miranda Priestly, the character Meryl Streep plays, is so awful, she’s wonderful. Weisberger’s brief (though it may have seemed quite LONG at the time!) employment as an “insider” fetching lattes for Wintour (sometime from 1999 to 2000) gave Weisberger a one-way, do-not-pass-go, ticket to a literary agent and book contract with Doubleday. So quickly did Weisberger pound out The Devil Wears Prada that Doubleday got it edited, printed and distributed to bookstores in 2003. You’ve just got to know Weisberger wrote in a fury and probably an indignant rage from the moment her “clacker”-self hit the pavement, either ceremoniously or unceremoniously. (Was she fired or marginalized until she quit? I don’t know.)
What does Weisberger’s experience placing a book tell you about how to get published quickly and smoothly?
For one thing, it really helps to be able to drop big names. Even if Weisberger doesn’t think having stepped and fetched for Anna Wintour helped place The Devil Wears Prada, believe me, it did. I think Weisberger was more than a bit coy in Elizabeth Spiers’ April 2003 Salon interview titled “When Personal Assistants Attack.” It’s a lot easier to get the attention of a literary agent and editor when you’ve been Anna Wintour’s personal assistant. So what if the book got “critically bashed” and Publishers Weekly damned it with faint praise: The Devil Wears Prada “manages to rise to the upper echelons of chick-lit drama.” There’s money in them thar tell-alls.
What does Meryl Streep’s character say to aspiring editors about the kind of personality it takes to be a screaming success in publishing?
Be willing to eat your young. Truth be told, in some ways, I actually liked and admired the Miranda Priestly character. Heaven knows the likes of her populate the book, magazine and newspaper publishing industries. In fact, I, no doubt, have a bit of her in me, as does every woman I know who has achieved a modicum of success in publishing. A person in Anna Wintour’s position can be a difficult, if not impossible, human being, but look at the pressure she has on her. Think of the number of wanna-be’s trying to hamstring her (not just nip at her heels.)
What does this tell you about loyalty between boss and employee?
Bottom line: Don’t look back. Lauren Weisberger did not take a vow of omerta when she signed on at Vogue. A Miranda Priestly-type boss understands (and doesn’t give a damn, by the way) what the employees think of her. Employees are only a means to an end—that end being to advance the career of Miranda Priestly. Everyone in the audience could relate to Priestly’s signals, direct and indirect, as she delighted in keeping the worker bees off balance. (The audience groaned as one when Priestly, who had been tossing her coat and bag onto the second assistant’s desk everyday, suddenly tossed them onto the desk of the first assistant. Demotion accomplished!)
This management style, by the way, is often referred to as the “Coercive Form of Management.” Employees can recognize it by the knives protruding from their backs and from being told about those memos that went to everyone but them. I suspect that many in the movie audience felt the pain from old, still festering, wounds.
Here’s a peek into this style of management from an article called Winning Management Styles: Linking Emotional Intelligence to Performance Results:
Coercive Style
- The coercive style leader often creates a reign of terror, bullying and demeaning his/her executives, roaring with displeasure at the slightest problem. Direct reports get intimidated and stop bringing bad news or any news, in fear of getting blamed for it, and morale plummets.
- This leadership style is least effective in most situations, and has a negative impact on organizational climate. The extreme top-down decision making kills employee’s ideas on the vine. Initiative and ownership plummet, so employees feel little accountability for performance.
- The coercive style should be used with extreme caution, as in during a crisis, or genuine emergency. If the leader solely relies on this style, the long term impact is ruinous to the group.
The coercive style creates chaos, demoralizes staff and drives the very best people away. Still, it leaves its implementer standing, alone and angrily despised by those employees capable of still functioning at the end of the day. (Ugandan Idi Amin threw the most marvelous dinner parties. You never knew whose head would be, literally, on a serving platter.) You can bet jobs at Vogue, whoops, Runway, get done pronto.
So to Weisberger I say: “Go, girl!” Happily burning her bridges, Weisberger got herself a smart agent, Deborah Schneider, and before the book was finished, Weisberger and Schneider had themselves a $200,000 movie deal and a contract with Doubleday Publishing for the hardcover. How many years would Weisberger have had to work at Vogue and how many tall lattes would she have had to deliver to Wintour to make that kind of money? (For heaven’s sake, hire Weisberger, The New Yorker!) And, hey, wouldn’t Miranda Priestly have done the same thing if the situation were reversed?
After 1 hr and 46 minutes The Devil Wears Prada end-credits rolled and an usher came over to chip me out of the ice block that had formed around me. I walked out of the theater into the sunshine thinking of Priestly as a kind of hero to all rapacious executive women everywhere, and remembering all those knife wounds and marginalizing memos throughout my career. My share given, my share received!
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July 10th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Great post, Lynne! Like they say: you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.
One of my first bosses used to say, “When I want your opinion I’ll give it to you!”
July 10th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
I had a boss that was good with knives. Her style was quiet and deceptive. You didn’t even hear the knife swooshing through the air. It just suddenly appeared in your back, blood oozing down your dress, then someone would hand you a platter and you would find your head centered on a bed of lettuce. I think I would prefer the in-your-face-Anna style rather than the “Kick Me” sign held on the back with a knife embedded to the hilt.
July 10th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
I love your blog dearly, Your Wickedness, but somehow you convinced me that not only do I not want to read young Ms. Weisberger’s “clacker-self” book, I cringe at the thought of watching Meryl Streep play Meryl Streep (again) in the movie version. The way you describe it (me being one of those “wind-breaking, mumbling senior citizens”), even extra butter on the popcorn wouldn’t make it worth the stay. I’ll take the heat outside.
I enjoyed your discussion of the “coercive management style,” but I think that got pretty well beaten up in old movies like “Nine-to-Five” and “Fun with Dick and Jane.” The chic styles today are “Labor-Management Partnerships,” ”Pay-the-CEO-More“,” and “Lay Off the Workers Before They Can Retire.”
Maybe all them thar “rapacious executive women” should worry in that direction instead.
Thanks again for a great post—I always enjoy, even when I disagree.
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Thanks for your comments, Andrew. Was that you in the third row at the Chelsea theater?
July 11th, 2006 at 8:32 am
A clever post about clever people.
Perennial bitchiness is not my bag.
July 11th, 2006 at 9:29 am
{{The chic styles today are “Labor-Management Partnerships,” ”Pay-the-CEO-More“,” and “Lay Off the Workers Before They Can Retire.” }}
Viva la corporations and Mr. Welch.
Can we stop being silly? I don’t think my keyboard can take anymore spraying of coffee!
Unfortunately, all these styles and more are found by many in most industries. Can’t we all just get along? No? I didn’t really think so.
If you’re going to be a Witch, then you’ve got to be willing to be called on it somewhere, and do we really think that Ms. Wintour will give a mouse’s behind on this or is she just counting the uptick in sales?
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: I got a call from a friend who read this post and said she felt that people like Miranda Priestly were “very unhappy people.” I disagreed. Their personal lives may be a failure, but if the sacrifice weren’t worth it, they’d make a change. They like being the lead dog, and as the saying goes,” if you are not the lead dog, the view never changes.”
July 11th, 2006 at 9:45 am
There is something wickedly fun about being wicked…isn’t there? ;-D
July 11th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
I’d watch Meryl Streep in anything, but then I have always been considered rather odd.
Seems a shame that us introverted, peaceloving writers have to step out of our safe cocoons only to have to face mean-spirited witchy poo editors, if we ever make it that far.
Why didn’t they ask your friend Nancy to play the part?
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Funny! Nancy Fay? That poor woman from my previous post? I think she has paid dearly for a momentary lapse in email judgment.
July 12th, 2006 at 7:14 am
This post reminds me of a job working as a technical writer for a computer consulting firm some years back.
My female boss - we’ll call her Medea - came to work for the company after I had worked there for about two years. At first, Medea was charming and very helpful, enhancing my writing and editing skills greatly.
She told me repeatedly that she had left her former job because her boss constantly took credit for her ideas. Surprise: in a meeting shortly after telling me that, I sat mute and amazed (how do you spell naive) as she presented, as her own, an idea I had suggested to her earlier that week.
She also informed me early on that even though I was the editor of a newsletter our company sent to administrators at the college to whom we provided our computer consulting services, that I was never, under any circumstances, to change a word in articles submitted by her. Roger that.
A few months later, she moved my desk into her office, positioning it so my back was to her - talk about looking over your shoulder!
She continually changed my responsibilities, increasing my work load to a point where I couldn’t possibly keep up. Finally, I gave notice and quit. She immediately hired a close friend to fill my position. (Did I hear someone say the word, “Sucker!”)
Oh, and did I mention: she suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia? Try working with your back to that!
She was fired a year later and, of course, she sued everyone in the company for every form of harrassment known to mankind. I was called to give a deposition - I’m guessing - because her lawyer thought I would have wondrous things to say about her. I did not.
Sign Me,
Liked the Job : Hated the Boss.
July 12th, 2006 at 8:26 am
I remember reading somewhere that Lauren Weisberger signed with a different publisher for her second book whose title I’ve forgotten. The problem with the roman a clef as a career launcher is replicating that fury you mentioned without actually experiencing the trauma that led to writing the first book. Can Lauren write a novel without Anna as her foil? Did her second book succeed?
July 12th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
As a personal assistant, I had to take my boss’s stool sample to the doctor’s office!
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Good Lord! Let’s hope it wasn’t in a clear plastic baggie! Yuck.
July 12th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger.
From Publishers Weekly
“A 27-year-old New York banker quits her job and finds work at a posh PR agency, trading her navy pantsuits for low-slung jeans and skimpy tops so she can hang out with the beautiful people at “in” places like Bungalow 8 (though first she has to find out what Bungalow 8 is). Weisberger’s bestselling The Devil Wears Prada hinged on a similar fish-out-of-water scenario, and while it may have worked then, this time around it feels like a rehash. The book occasionally entertains—as when it makes jabs at the very critics who panned DWP—but not nearly often enough.”
Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing ™: Thanks, Peter, for stopping by with that info. I also read somewhere that Weisberger is finishing up her third novel. Good for her.
July 15th, 2006 at 7:11 am
I’m about to read this book for work purposes - sounds like it could be interesting!
July 20th, 2006 at 1:11 am
Ok, after a week of anquishing over this, I’m going to be the stupid one and ask what a “prada” is. I appreciate the premise that one must come up with an intriguing title, but I find some of them irritating. “Fried Green Tomatoes.” No one questions it–they go to see it. “The Scent of Green Papaya.” Yes, we should see that. Did anyone really dance with wolves? “Laughing with Gravy.” “Good Will Hunting”– I went expecting old farmer Will clearing the landscape of all living beings, only to find it’s about an MIT janitor who loves blackboards.
Remember–I fell asleep face down in my popcorn during Prada, so I’ve had to research it since. “Prada” could be “A unit of Sanskrit poetic meter” or a “Proton Radiograph.” I’m guessing it’s a woman’s shoe, advertised as “an America’s cup denim blue suede high top women’s sneakers.” But even when I awoke in the loud parts, I don’t remember the sneakers. And why would the devil wear women’s sneakers?
But everyone talks like they know all along who this guy “Prada” is. I wonder sometimes if we go to movies because they just sound cerebral and we don’t want to get caught at the cocktail party.
Time for my warm milk, even though it gives me the winds something awful.
February 8th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Liked the article and I really love The Devil Wears Prada. Since the question doesn’t appear to have been answered anywhere: “Prada” is a brand of clothing, like D&G, Valentino…
Love Meryl Streep…she’s really brilliant in everything and does a great job in this. I think it’s one of her best comic roles yet.
As to the demonic boss, the more I watch this movie - and I haven’t read the book - the more I admire the boss and loath the worker (Andie-character). I’ve had a bad boss, at least one, but my job, like Andie’s/LW’s came with some perks. If you decide to work for some one, you damn well do what they ask or quit. You’re only boundaries are legal ones. If your boss asks you to do something illegal, you don’t do it. Everything else, you do or quit. What really gets me: in the movie, Miranda Priestly isn’t ‘evil’. She’s ruthless and unsentimental about work, but she’s also responsible for a major magazine that is worth millions of dollars. Her assistants get great clothes and access to everyone. Not to mention trips to Paris. What the hell is there to bitch about? Do the job or quit. It’s that simple. Andie’s character is weak and pathetic. Particularly since she could, as she wants to be a writer, set up her own business and freelance. At least, dump the whiny boyfriend who’s career is apparently more important than hers (he celebrates her quitting a prestigious job, he never supports her working, and he proceeds to take a job in Boston, I think it is, and make a definite move upstream when his girlfriend goes to Paris). And she doesn’t take advantage of her job to do what she claims she wants to do…who would turn down an introduction to the editor of New York Magazine to go to a birthday party for which they’re already too late???
I hope next time there’s a writer-type featured in a movie script that they have a tougher spine than Andrea Sachs/Lauren Weisberger. Give me a break.