Is «The Devil Wears Prada 2» a film about the end of newspapers? The debate between apocalyptic and integrated and the (determining) role of readers

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«But to you The Devil Wears Prada 2 didn’t it cause a journalistic panic attack?”. A colleague-friend of mine went to see it The Devil Wears Prada 2and came out shocked. «As a child, when I watched science fiction films with alien invasions, I always asked myself: where are the journalists? Now I understand where I am: the newspapers will all be closed in the future.”

Del films with Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway that everyone is seeing – it is estimated that it reached 10 million in takings over the weekend – I write below, with a warning: the piece contains some relevant details of the film’s plot, which let’s say is not exactly full of twists and turns, but if you are one of those who are bothered by previews, read in a bit of a zigzag fashion.

For many commentators who have written about it in recent days, The Devil Wears Prada 2 it is also a film about the end of newspapers. Miranda and Andy find themselves, as in the first film twenty years ago, in the editorial office of the fashion magazine Runwaysa now explicit model of Vogue as Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) it is the former director’s Anna Wintourwho left the role last September.

They are always the same; the newspaper, however, has changed a lot. On paper it only comes out every now and then, in precious “book” format: for the rest, it summarizes the eternal artistic director Nigel (Stanley Tucci)“we are downloadable, streamable, clickable”, generally lost in the ether, that is, more or less irrelevant. The legendary Runways that is, in the second film, it is a site hidden behind a paywall, accessible to anyone who doesn’t want to pay for it, just use one of the many sites that bypass the paywall with one click (which ones? Should I tell you?).

Like almost all newspapers in the world now; except warheads like the Guardianwhich hold in a stubborn and contrary direction all free and open to the public only to then inundate subscribers with begging emails with increasingly desperate tones (the last one I received yesterday: if you can, please support us even just once by donating even just one euro).

Like many newspapers in reality, Runways continuously risks closure. Its fortunes are saved or jeopardized only by the whims of ultra-billionaires who understand nothing about newspapers, and send ranks of consultants («the gravediggers») to figure out how to cut as much as possible, or they hope that the newspaper can be done one hundred percent with artificial intelligence (convenient, to understand who would read it).

Andy (Anne Hathaway) go back to work at Runways after twenty years because she is unemployed: the film opens with her receiving an important journalistic award having just discovered that the New York Vanguardthe imaginary investigative daily newspaper for which she works, will close, firing her and all her colleagues.
It’s not science fiction: just three months ago, in February, the Washington Post by Jeff Bezos fired a third of his staff in a group video call.

Even in Italy, as elsewhere, more newspapers close than they are born and this is especially true for those who were once called i magazinethat is, glossy magazines. The last to have announced the end of publications, via email and precisely on a day of journalists’ strike, was Wired.

Also our national contractwhich expired in 2016, was never renewed by the publishers’ federation, which in the negotiations was asked to at least adjust our salaries to inflation. But how? Many newspapers are at a loss, and have no clear strategy to recover.

Also because many editorial lines they don’t hold up to internet audience metrics. TO Runways Andy arrives with the title of feature editor, that is, he has to take care of the articles: he puts in a good buzz, but it’s immediately clear that his pieces don’t attract enough clicks. Translated: few people read them. Another story that anyone who works on an information site knows very well.

To see The Devil Wears Prada 2 I went with a friend to a cinema in the center of Milan, at aperitif time; fortunately I tried to book the tickets two hours in advance, so I was still able to find two (and not three) seats close together in the very first row. Maybe I have permanent vision damage now, who knows. Of course the screening looked like a happening. Young or very young audience – except the rapper Lazza and Claudio Bisio, spotted at the exit and it seems to me not recognized by anyone else – fashion week clothingPrada handbags in white calfskin, Prada trench coats fresh from the dry cleaners, Prada sweaters, Prada polo shirts.

And that’s also all I have to say about the timeliness and relevance of the scene in the film in which Emily (Emily Blunt)a former colleague of the protagonist who has now recycled herself as a Dior pr manager, wearing Dior logos from head to toe, gives a short monologue in which she explains to the management of Runways that “without us, you don’t exist.” Without the brands, that is (brand I refuse), newspapers no longer exist, he says; and in any case the brands are always right, which is in any case the reason of the strongest.

And in fact: having to divide them between newspaper readers and (aspiring) high fashion users, I believe that 90 percent of those present in the room except memy friend and peer, perhaps Lazza and perhaps Claudio Bisio, were there sighing over the cuteness of the stage clothes and the brands represented, certainly not over the death of newspapers.

(And in fact: I participated, invited as a journalist, in an event at the Salone del Mobile sponsored by a large fashion brand. They gave me a bag containing objects with their logos, and I immediately gave them to a relative because I was moving and she put them on Vinted; the day after the PR of the large fashion brand had the friend who was organizing the event call me to tell me to remove the bag from Vinted. And what did I do? I had it removed, too ashamed. But why? It’s the reason of the strongest).

In the Devil Wears Prada 2Emily now pr of Dior imposes on Runways to host five pages of articles, in the precious and unobtainable paper edition, at the opening of a Dior store (flagship store I refuse). Would you read a five-page article on opening a store? I do not believe. But this is also the reason of the strongest, and it is enough to leaf through any fashion magazine to see that it is often exercised: the balance sheet of no “feminine” stands up thanks to copies sold or subscriptions, and the money of investors, that is, of those who buy advertising, is very precious. (Implied: more precious than those of the reader, who, after all, finding five pages dedicated to the opening of a shop in the newspapers is also easy for them to fall out of love with, but whatever).

And so even the creative editorial meetings of the two films are now a distant dream. Yes, precisely the scenes where Miranda utters her most cult lines, like «flowers in spring? Pure avant-garde”. And in the new film: “body negative… that is, body positive, I understand, but… why?”. That is, the editorial staff of a women’s magazine is almost no longer the temple of the art that contaminates the fashion that these jokes allow us to imagine; instead, it is much more often a place where advertising investments are translated down to the millimeter in the presence of brands in services, photo galleries on websites or social media, even captions and boxes.

Almost everything that appears in a feature or photo gallery of a fashion newspaper is the precise return on an advertising investment, and to get those who make the newspaper (stylists and journalists) and those who sell advertising space (marketing) to talk to each other, many publications have equipped themselves with a marketing editor, a sort of cultural mediator which prevents the two categories from coming into contact and perhaps coming to blows.

So who can save a newspaper like this from irrelevance? In the film he comes – spoilers – a good billionaire after two terrible billionaires, and so on Runways continues to prosper, just like Andy who, when in doubt, gets engaged to a building developer.

In reality the answer is more complex, e.g among the journalists who comment on the film as a game, these days, there is a divide between apocalyptic and integrated.

The integrated ones: accept that the media world is like this today, that it is the one that has understood everything it’s not Andy or Miranda but Emily. In the first film she was a harassed assistant; in the second she managed not only to get engaged to a billionaire tech-bro who lost weight with protein, but also to find a job outside the newspapers, in a luxury empire. Of course, she looks like someone without morals; but the newspapers don’t come out much better as Runwaysfilled with what in jargon we call “hustlers”, i.e. articles agreed with advertisers, such as the one above about the opening of a shop. Nor the journalists who write them, who end up equally dependent on the money of luxury empires but with less solid and less lavish salaries.

And then there are those who they refuse that it has to be this way: who insist, journalism is by no means irrelevant, despite those who continue to hope that it will become so; the reading data of the sites is encouraging, it is not true that people do not read “serious” things, it is not true that they do not subscribe, it is not even true that newspapers no longer contribute to acting as watchdogs of power. That is, these people trust you.

«I hope that the public realizes that the fate of journalism is in their handsand if you believe it you also believe that it is an important destiny. I personally believe it,” Meryl Streep told the BBC on the film’s press tour.

Are you who read – the newspapers, this newsletter – willing to make yourself heard with the newspapers that are close to your heart? To say that you don’t want “hustlers” if you don’t want them; to say that you are interested in a certain topic, that you would like to read about that other topic, that that article was sloppy, that editorial made you change your mind? Or even less: to pay for a subscription to a newspaper, perhaps on offer, and maybe even read it? As he writes Guardian: even one euro can be enough…