Dear Diary:
I like TV. And now since it’s been raining lately in NYC, I like my TV more. I like HBO, Showtime, Food Channel, etc. But I have started watching FX for their reruns of Family Guy, King of the Hill, That 70′s show, etc. But lately, I’m starting to dislike FX, mainly because it has decided that going on a Devil Wears Prada marathon was something besides annoyingly stupid.
I hate the movie Devil Wears Prada, for various reasons. However, it seems like my girl friends have more reasons to hate it.
Here we have Miranda Presley, the “Dragon Lady” who is career obsessed and goes through husbands like yesterday’s tampons. Then we have Anne Hathaway’s character, who gets wrapped up in the fashion world, her career, and being a high powered career woman, who at the last second, saves her “soul” by throwing her T-mobile side kick into the water fountain in Paris and taking a shit job at a shit paper on the shitty side of NYC.
Great. So what’s the moral of the story here?
Women shouldn’t be career driven.
But more than that, it looks down on anyone who is career driven. Anyone who answers their phone (er…blackberry) while at dinner, or who is always on call. But isn’t that the life of anyone successful?
The movie is a bunch of bullshit, for more than one reason, but especially the one I outlined above. What’s wrong with being career driven? If you’re going to survive in BigLaw, you’d better be career driven. What partner do you know who hasn’t worked his/her ass off (at least during some point in his/her life even though he’s now putting whiskey in his coffee while at work because he has nothing to do and is scared shitless about being de-equitized or kicked to the curb) and who hasn’t had at least one divorce or one affair (or whose significant other has had an affair)?
Seriously.
This is the life of BigLaw. But not just BigLaw–any high powered career, whether it be law, business, finance, fashion, dog shows, race car driver, chef, professional gigolo, etc.
Even the assholes who wrote the damn movie are career driven.
Andy’s father says he doesn’t understand why someone who got into Yale law school would take a job that doesn’t make her happy (ahem…BigLaw), but what’s more is that he complains that she is always on her side kick and is sending emails at 3am. Does he really think going to law school is what…easier than being Miranda’s PA?? You BigLaw attorneys work your asses off. We need other people to know how hard earned our fancy suits are in order to somehow justify the bullshit we have to absorb through the catheter that is BigLaw.
Ok, back to the movie, so Miranda’s a back stabbing bitch and screws over Jacqueline and her bald side kick Nigel with annoying black rimmed glasses because she has a long list of clients. WHAT’S NEW?? Moreover, what’s wrong with this? She has a fucking book of business–she should be able to use it to save her job. Is it because I USED to be a lawyer (yes, I’m leaving the law) that I see nothing wrong with what Miranda did and subsequently have a different amoral look on business ethics? What the fuck did Nigel have? Did he have clients? No. Did he have a lot of money? No. Did he have anything else besides an annoying personality? No. So, yes, Miranda should have ended up on top. That’s life.
That’s also BigLaw. There’s nothing different in the competitive BigLaw environment. Partners steal each other’s clients just like monkey associates steal each other’s credit and everyone throws everyone under the bus. I’ve known several partners who have thrown other partners under the bus resulting in, at least a few times, said run-over partner leaving the firm.
This movie is for chumps and for little girls who sit and talk about boys, stickers, and unicorns.
So, add this reason to the long list of reasons as to why this movie just plain sucks balls.
–I hate this movie
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Hilariously angry!! I hate that movie, too! Those over-worked alcoholic partners should just wait to get fired, though. Maybe they'll be able to get a wrongful termination lawsuit out of it: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2009/06/24/what-fir...
Hilariously angry!! I hate that movie, too! Those over-worked alcoholic partners should just wait to get fired, though. Maybe they'll be able to get a wrongful termination lawsuit out of it: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2009/06/24/what-fir...
Ugh…ok Cassandra, maybe the point of the movie is that there is a balance between "driven careerist" and "saving your soul" by not becoming one… You exhibit, unfortunately, the smug assumptions of BigLaw, and therefore, have sadly lost the capacity to realize that the movie may speak to both women AND men (defalting your sexist angle), and that why many find BigLaw such a singularly unsatisfying "either/or" proposition.
Ugh…ok Cassandra, maybe the point of the movie is that there is a balance between "driven careerist" and "saving your soul" by not becoming one… You exhibit, unfortunately, the smug assumptions of BigLaw, and therefore, have sadly lost the capacity to realize that the movie may speak to both women AND men (defalting your sexist angle), and that why many find BigLaw such a singularly unsatisfying "either/or" proposition.
what? Why are you calling him Cassandra? Cassandra could accurately tell the future but was cursed by Apollo so that nobody would believe her. That's why Rome fell. Because they didn't hear her prophesies.
Are you calling Laid Off Cassandra because he can tell the future and nobody is heading his cries and BigLaw will fall like Rome? If so, ok, I can agree with that.
Otherwise, I think you're trying to use the reference to Cassandra and other words that are too big for you incorrectly.
I hated this movie too.
what? Why are you calling him Cassandra? Cassandra could accurately tell the future but was cursed by Apollo so that nobody would believe her. That's why Rome fell. Because they didn't hear her prophesies.
Are you calling Laid Off Cassandra because he can tell the future and nobody is heading his cries and BigLaw will fall like Rome? If so, ok, I can agree with that.
Otherwise, I think you're trying to use the reference to Cassandra and other words that are too big for you incorrectly.
I hated this movie too.
Cassandra predated the fall of Rome by nearly 2,000 years. She was from Troy, and was brought home to Greece by Agamemnon as a spoil. She was welcomed to the house as a slave by Agamemnon's wife, who was still really really mad at Agamemnon for throwing their daughter Iphigenia off of a cliff to get favorable winds to sail to Troy 10 years before. Plus she had taken a lover while Agamemnon was off fighting the war. The fall Cassandra predicted was the fall of the house of Agamemnon. Rome hadn't even been invented yet.
Cassandra predated the fall of Rome by nearly 2,000 years. She was from Troy, and was brought home to Greece by Agamemnon as a spoil. She was welcomed to the house as a slave by Agamemnon's wife, who was still really really mad at Agamemnon for throwing their daughter Iphigenia off of a cliff to get favorable winds to sail to Troy 10 years before. Plus she had taken a lover while Agamemnon was off fighting the war. The fall Cassandra predicted was the fall of the house of Agamemnon. Rome hadn't even been invented yet.