The Devil Wears Prada 2 Triggered Our Media Trauma

Welcome to THE GROUP CHAT, a recurring feature in which the Scratch collective invites you into our real-life text thread. Previously, we've discussed how much money we make from writing books and our other income streams, and whether we should all get retail jobs.

This week, Latria, Maggie, and Manjula took to the group chat to discuss the most recent hollywood-ification of the journalism industry: The Devil Wears Prada 2. (Rahawa was busy juggling her other three jobs.) As many others have written, this film's interpretation of the glossy magazine world was far too realistic, what with the opening scene showing Andi receiving a journalism award moments after finding out her entire paper had been laid off. All three of us have dealt with the New York magazine industry in different capacities over the years so we thought you might be interested in how our own experiences stood up to this billionaires-will-save-us fiction – and exactly which of our media traumas this film triggered – maybe you had thoughts? Join the discussion in the comments section.

A reminder that Scratch is not funded by billionaires (not even the wife kind) but you can fund us with a paid subscription anytime.

Light spoilers ahead, but really, does it even matter?
This transcript has been lightly edited and condensed. 

Maggie: Wow. That was a journey. 

Latria: Yeeeeeeeah. 

Manjula: Don’t worry y’all, Mackenzie Scott will save us

oops I mean Lucy Liu

Maggie: I mean this is literally a conversation people have here all the time (Maybe especially in Seattle)

All the little nonprofit or media startups are like will Mackenzie Scott just save us? 

Manjula: Literally something nonprofit lit mags say at meetings on the regular

Maggie: Unfortunately, unlike Lucy Liu, she is actually impossible to contact. And she is not saving any media!!! Not yet anyway

Manjula: Yeah it’s, uh, a flawed concept. To put it mildly

Maggie: I’m kind of glad they made a “journalism is over, guys” movie… actually. But yeah there’s no point pretending there’s a happy ending I guess

Manjula: It was so bad Maggie. As a Movie

Maggie: I kind of enjoyed it!!! Maybe I am deranged.

Tho, in real life: even if this happened, Andi would be instated as EIC of Vanity Fair, with no staff and have to cater to terrible advertisers and put out fires and leave five years later with no sanity left

Manjula: OK so, this is getting closer to why this movie fucked me up emotionally…

Maggie: Go on!!

⁨Latria: So like, my take is that the movie was pretty but also 🫠

Maggie: I want to know more about the emotional response. I expected to have more of one. But I felt mostly like I was in a happy fantasy version of what could have been something like my own career journey and for some reason that was kinda nice?

⁨Manjula: Um well let’s see ... I took notes!

Maggie: love that

⁨Manjula:⁩ "Remember when magazines were a thing?” -Emily

HENRY V AS TROPHY HUSB

[these are my notes]

Maggie: I truly loved that kenneth branagh as trophy husband. The cameos alone in this movie are worth an essay. Suleika Jaouad and Jon Baptiste at the Hamptons!!! Like, OK Suleika! (Editor’s note: Suleika, if you’re out there, please talk to Scratch about this experience)

⁨Manjula: Right? lol. Mostly i felt this was a horror film: Andi is the final girl

Maggie: I mean. the first one kinda is! she makes it out!

⁨Manjula:⁩ For me the emotional response was a lot about boss ptsd

Maggie: when i first saw the original after working at a woman's mag as an assistant I was like "OOOOOOOH YEAH. THAT’S WHY IT WAS SO BAD"

⁨Manjula: yes. But it’s a horror movie because SHE GOES BACK IN THERE. Don’t go in there Andi

Maggie: oh yeah but that's so glossy magazine. it chews you up and spits you out and you have some little gremlin in your head that's like "but this time will be better" the gloss! the elevators! the pretty office! and then it's just really awful, AGAIN!

But there are no choices to be had anymore so what's Andi to do? Freelance? lol
Go into PR?

⁨Manjula: Ok but this is also the literary world! Editing lit mags for no money! It's not just writers who don't get paid well or often at all

Maggie: Definitely. Also can we talk about getting offered $350k for a tell all about a pretend Anna Wintour? Come on. That would be at least a 500k deal.

⁨Manjula:⁩ Ah yes, I have a note on that in my little book: lolllllllllllllllll

Also, like, where is her agent?

Maggie: The other fantasy part... is that if she went back to Vogue AKA Runway this year there would be NONE of that left. Condé has completely consolidated already.

⁨Manjula: Also: a book deal is the career saving goal? Oh, honey

Maggie: And she bought an apartment!?!? In NYC? On a magazine salary!?

⁨Manjula:⁩ Oh for sure. It is a fantasy all the way. AND it made me weep big wet tears of despair and self-recognition.

Maggie: Miranda is really a great example of the weird obsession and self-importance of that world. At every turn you're like, well she could just retire. BUT SHE WON’T. And we're supposed to see it as like, cute?

I kind of loved how she was like "write the book, it will make me last another few years" tho, bc that is totally what happened with Anna [Wintour] bc of the original Devil Wears Prada, written as a tell-all (but sold as a novel) by her former assistant.

Manjula: Oh I did not know this, actually?

Maggie: yeah

⁨Manjula:⁩ I totally missed the initial press cycle on that book. [checks date] Oh, right, that was after I'd quit journalism, I was working at a record store and hadn't yet had the brilliant idea of returning to toxic editing and writing jobs in order to make a living. Those were the days!

I think the whole "but this time will be better" thinking is essentially why this movie messed me up emotionally. Because I am STILL DOING THIS. At my age. And admittedly i am in a Life Moment right now so, like, this silly movie cannot take too much credit, but also…. honestly I think it made me want to just quit entirely? Writing and publishing and editing and…. all of it. And I am not a person who ever, ever says that. but i was just sitting there in the matinee, thinking, maybe it’s time to Bartleby my ass outta all this.

It was just such a sad and basic cinematic fantasy of a writing career that it exposed to me the basic-ness of my own career fantasies, maybe? idk

Maggie: No I think that’s very fair. I think my antidepressants are just really working for me today. And I guess in some ways I feel like I’ve already buried that idea and industry. Like the mag I worked for doesn’t print anymore and just basically shut most of the way down… and the idea that I would have a traditional career has been a joke since day 1 (thanks Great Recession).

I think maybe I’m feeling more OK lately about creating new shit that’s not trying to model after those old things…

⁨Manjula: Totally. Ironically, I think that being one of the few people lucky enough to have paid employment in the dregs of the lit mag sector has trapped me in that old way of thinking a bit more than I realized! 😭

Maggie: I can see that. There’s an element of that in everything now:
“Oh maybe THIS will actually work!”/ be like “the old days” or whatever. I definitely feel deluded on many days of the week when I’m like “why aren’t I pitching more big features??”

⁨Latria: Yeah i felt like that book deal number was WAY TOO LOW. Vogue isnt VOGUE but I told my brother I thought that was at least 700k. Andi getting that apartment DID ME IN.

(Sorry y'all, unexpected call, just diving back in)

⁨Manjula:⁩ There was one truly wonderful thing about this movie and that was the bonkers floral couture. It was just a side gag but so great.

Not great: the concept of a fashion magazine doing a runway show for fashion week? That… is not a thing, is it?

Like, the fashion magazines *cover* the fashion shows?

Maggie: I was very confused by that. I think they tried to explain it in one of the meeting scenes but yeah. generally not a thing.

⁨Latria: So many things were just unrealistic 😭 i just severed any expectation of realism from this. Also I am still like...what was that Last Supper Scene?!?

⁨Manjula:⁩ Oh god I think I blacked that out 😭it’s Art, Latria!

⁨Latria: I just...I am sure it was meant to feel prescient and whatever but it just felt controlling and creepy 😭

Maggie: No I think it was meant to feel controlling and creepy! Reminder that Miranda is not on YOUR SIDE ANDI no matter what you are feeling. 

Latria: I am also not here for Stanley Tucci's character never asking for what he wants: YOU CANNOT FIX THIS ANDI HE IS GONNA HAVE TO TALK

⁨Manjula: Pretty convinced that the cutaway scene is actually Tucci absolutely bombing the Big Speech speech, after two decades of not talking 😭

⁨Latria: I mean, unless he was always practicing in his room...🫠 That was the other thing. He had the strings to get Andi a job but not the oomph to get himself a role that made sense? Folks that strategic aren't often that...is the word I want shortsighted?

I just didn't believe the actions of so many of the characters. Also ANDI GIRL why are you trusting Emily A THIRD FUCKING TIME ALL SHE DOES IS BETRAY YOU. I am sorry I am skipping around but like, surely Andi is smarter than this 😭

⁨[ONE DAY LATER...]

Latria:⁩ Aaaaand Murdoch just acquired New York Mag 🫠This is not the billionaire takeover DWP2 envisioned!

⁨Manjula:⁩ Coincidentally I am cleaning out my office and …. well, like Miranda, I was very good at my job!

Maggie: Yeah you were!!! / ARE

⁨Manjula: At Zoetrope the whole staff was two people, so part of my job was kind of like art director– i worked with the celebrity guest designers to develop their concept for the issue format and look, then helped make it happen with the in-house graphic designer (who is a genius)

while also being the managing editor

among many other roles :)

Maggie: That is the part of the movie that is still making me sad tho, like we are all really good at this stuff. We could have had careers writing the good stories and making the beautiful magazines, but is anyone reading them? The whole thing about Andi having to wrangle all these big features and then also publish the click bait stuff bc that's all people read...

And that is probably also the fault of the billionaires taking over and working us all to death... yet the billionaires are the only ones who can bail out these types of companies anymore

⁨Latria: Billionaires, metrics, worthiness, capitalism...it all converges on the printed word 😭

Manjula:👆

⁨Latria: (It's just me in my feels but yeah) 

Also I have to say that even if it meant Runway closed down...I would have preferred that to Emily owning it. But yeah balancing the SEO/clickbait/really good journalism bit is just 🫠

I think we all were/are really good at our jobs and LIKED doing them when the conditions are right.

Maggie: I did have a moment where I thought, Oh, yeah they're just gonna start their own venture, that's cool!

But no. That is not Hollywood!

⁨Manjula:⁩ Also really (already!) tired of Big Capitalism Culture mourning their own demise via fiction and equating that with, like, losing Beauty and Truth entirely

Latria: Yeah...I knew they bought too much into the "cool" for that to be a thing

⁨Manjula:⁩ I wrote in my notes (in the dark in the movie theater, so I think this is what it says): awful old rich white lady =/= culture, though!

⁨Latria: Like (to me) Andi and Emily unite because they want to save Runway because of what that name does for them

⁨Manjula:⁩ I resent being forced to choose between Miranda and whatever tech bro that weird actor guy is supposed to be portraying

Maggie: YES! Andi is like MIRANDA IS A TREASURE when like... no... she's just convinced you of this.... it would be OK for her to retire actually.

Latria:  This. This This This This This.

There is still some loyalty to an ideal that Andi is clinging to that I dont know if I can respect!

Manjula: The fact that there is an entire generation of well paid establishment culture makers who have refused to retire or yield power to younger generations is part of how we got to where we are today. Same goes for nonprofits. Like, these are not coincidences. Once you become the old guard, it is your responsibility to recognize that and step the fuck aside, if you care about THE CULTURE or whatever. 

Train people up. Open that door. RETIRE BITCH

⁨Latria: Yes. I know we are not that old but I am already like...who needs the mentoring and encouragement to take my spot when theyre ready

⁨Manjula:⁩ Same
I actually am that old! It generally happens between 45 and 55 imo. Meryl Streep is 76 years old. (as is my mother!)

Maggie: as is Anna Wintour. man, I dunno I feel like I don’t have a spot to give to anyone

⁨Manjula:⁩ so we have a culture industry that largely refuses, whether intentionally or through inaction, to open the gates for new generations/ideas. Instead they just wants to do their thing and make more $ forever

And we have an industry masquerading as a culture (tech) that uses “breaking down those gates!” as cover to do capitalism crimes/whatever the fuck they want

Neither of those models are good for artists or culture workers. Or culture, it turns out!

Latria: It was like that VC firm buying Outside. They didn't really care about the other publications, they wanted that big yellow name. And all the things they thought that name bought (even though its owner was terrible about paying his bills on time and left a tangle of pissed off freelancers).

Again I saw this movie in a delirious state bc i had just finished book stuff, but my friends/editors that work in magazines in NYC don't have the old school perks, and bc everyone is on rotating in office schedules w part remote work, in some days they are fighting for an available desk. One of my editors had to take a call with me in the stairwell bc there were no open spots for her to sit.

Manjula: 😮

⁨Latria:⁩ Whatever fantasy this movie cooked up for people...my editors are NOT LIVING IT. I literally start all my calls with my editors with "Have you had a snack? Do you need a restroom break? Starting this call on time only works if your needs are met." And it sounds so dumb. But the way that they're being crammed into spaces with logistics for them, with back to back calls bc some of us are phone and virtual, it gives them no breaks. And nobody ever asks them.

And like, I imagine that space is totally sterile because no one is decorating a desk or buying plants for a space that never becomes your space. Where do you put an inspo board? What do you do with your physical notes? How do you set up visuals? It all feels like a mess!

Manjula: [weeps silently with gratitude for all overworked and underpaid editors everywhere, self included]

⁨Latria: Particularly because they're making people come in to the office, but not giving them any of the mind space to unfurl that comes with being in an office

⁨Manjula:⁩ I’m kind of amazed that magazines even still have offices tbh

Maggie: yeah i'm struggling with this

⁨Latria: It is a whole lot to struggle with! It is basically the last 30 years. Our whole adult lives for sure.

Maggie: I think the movie is actually a good portrayal of that tension between tech and culture in SOME ways. but where it's inaccurate is the idea that even having that same hyper hierarchical THERE'S ONLY ONE PIE FOR CULTURE AND THAT’S THIS MAGAZINE is not a GOOD thing to have saved

⁨Latria: We have come up in a space with precious little opportunity for us. Andi has to leave the structure and come back to get anywhere/any agency

⁨Manjula: from my notes: This is what I keep thinking will happen! I’ll show them one day, one day they’ll finally see how good I am, then they’ll let me run it. Do my thing. But they won’t.  And if they do, it’s a trap! So maybe I should just let it go.

Maggie: ❤️ I was at Condé Nast in 2013/2014. Every magazine still had their own floor. Glamour had a team of fact checkers, a team of digital producers, a whole features dept, etc. etc. Within two years, there was no print magazine, EIC was out, and within 3-4 no one I knew still worked there. Anyone who still worked for the company worked for Condé Nast like umbrella corp digital blah blah whatever. And everyone at that magazine while I was there with the already stripped down resources was overworked beyond belief. I knew deep in my core how broken the system was.

And I STILL sometimes feel all wistful like... maybe I would have made it as a big magazine writer if I'd stuck it out. But like, no one is making it. This system is not working. It is broken. There is no saving it.

OMG MANJULA, jinx.

Manjula:⁩ I worked in print mags in nyc in the late 90s. I have been to some of those legendary parties! They weren’t that great!

I guess I could have been running a Condé title by the 2010s but in 1999 I decided to work service jobs instead because I didn’t want to be a corporate journalism guy. Didn’t come back to writing for a long time after that

Maggie: ❤️

Latria: 💙

Manjula:⁩ It’s always been broken

Maggie: YES. but there's this niggling thing. like it made me feel SO GOOD to go up those elevators every day

Latria:‼️

⁨Manjula:⁩ oh yes for sure

Maggie: like I HAVE MADE IT. when I was making $4k a month as a contractor w/ no benefits and working like insane hours and being treated not great a lot of the time.

It's like we're at the end of something. And I think that's sad. And I want us creative writer journalism people types to like... find something that works better. But everything is so shit bc of the tech bro economy that it feels impossible to see the financials ever work out. because they've been rigged not to ... but maybe it's also not sad?

Sorry i feel insane right now. this from the lady who was like "this movie was cute!" yesterday

⁨Manjula: Say more. I’m with you.

Maggie: like we've all been in that glossy world at some point and it wasn't good! we need new things

Latria: I actually never worked on staff at a glossy! I got an informational interview at O, the Oprah Magazine back in the day amd spent some time in a one on one w Gayle King but that was the extent of it for me in the city!

So reading some of this is illuminating.

Until my columns I have always been a paid-by-the piece freelancer
G&G is technically a glossy and i have a little experience with magazine parties there, but like, that's the total of it!

So reading all this i am like...but in those moments it seems SO SHINY

⁨Manjula:⁩ I worked at a small, independent published print mag. But it was a gay print mag in the west village. So we got to go to the parties 😄

(Ok technically it wasn’t a gay magazine but 98% of the staff were gay men)

Maggie: i had another author event last night with a not great turnout and I just feel like I keep NOT learning a lesson that like, people don't show up to things anymore. people don't buy books anymore. people don't read longform journalism anymore. why do i keep trying?

⁨Manjula:⁩ I feel that a lot lately too. It is scary!

The only thing I have to counter it is:
-trying to notice the situations in which I *do* feel like people are reading or responding to one another’s work, and doing more of that myself
-usually this is at tiny scale – like, talking about a book I read with two other friends
-also often at the library!
-also remembering that this is a Moment and moments pass. I do think people are not reading. I also think it will pass. In my lifetime? idk

Maggie: yes, it's the small scale for sure. I got an email this morning from someone who read my book and it was so extremely nice
and I really don't hear from readers very often at all.

Manjula:⁩ Me neither!

Maggie: And I try to remember that i read things all the time and love them and am impacted by them without having time to reach out to the author.

⁨Manjula: This makes me realize I should tell more authors when I love their books! LISA ROBERTSON YOUR NEW BOOK IS SO MY JAM. MARIA PINTO YOU SHOULD BE A HOUSEHOLD NAME.

Maggie: I am glad we are doing Scratch bc I do feel like it's a small way to be together and keep writing and encourage and support other writers without being in our little silos. I realize this is getting meta...

Manjula: I am too. It is special in that way. But also I feel like Scratch is a lot of work, honestly, for basically no pay. Those things are both true!

The money thing, again.

Maggie:💯

⁨Manjula: Sometimes I just want to talk about literature. Not about writing and writers and work. Is this a safe space to say that? 😂

Maggie: ❤️ 100% it's that whole thing of the VALUE. like these things are VALUABLE. but nothing actually valuable to the world translates to actually getting paid anymore.

Manjula:👆

Maggie: YES I WANT TO JUST TALK ABOUT LITERATURE TOO

Manjula: HELLO

Maggie: I went to a Seattle Arts and Lectures thing last week with Emily Wilson, the woman who translated the Odyssey and Iliad and I've been meaning to read her translations forever, and bought them both (she is BRILLIANT in person). and every morning I'm like: I'd like to sit here and just read epic poetry.

But alas, I cannot.

Or maybe I should just eschew all my other projects. lol. I DONT KNOW ANYMORE. IS THIS MOVIE AND CONVERSATION MY BREAKING POINT?

⁨Manjula:⁩ Welcome to my mind 😂

I like Emily Wilson but also maybe don’t love her Odyssey? Controversial, I know! It’s not poem-y enough for me lol. But I want to be her student

Maggie: oooh interesting. omg her talk was SO GOOD. and she performed some of the original ancient greek. Truly revelatory.

Manjula:⁩ I am reading aforementioned Lisa Roberston’s RIVERWORK, which addresses many topics in this chat - women’s labor, fashion, aging, Paris

Maggie: oooh. adding to list

⁨Manjula:⁩ but with zero fucks given re Mainstream Book Whatever

Maggie: damn i need to get to a bookstore soon

⁨Manjula:⁩ Scratch Book Club

Maggie: I would just run book clubs as a living if i could. maybe we should just open a book store

😭

back to the retail convo!

⁨Manjula: lololol.

Can I segue to something less profound which is how CRIMINALLY UNDERUSED Kate Sharma was in that movie? idk her real name

Maggie: OMG YES SHE WAS INCREDIBLE

⁨Manjula: the delightful young actress who was also the best thing to ever happen to Bridgerton. Yes she was amazing! But why so little of her!?

Maggie: speaking of the talent not being used, Timothée Chalamet's sister whom I LOVE had like one line in an editorial meeting

⁨Manjula:⁩ Wait what. There are other Chalameeeeets?

Maggie: she's the lead in the Sex Lives of College Girls show
she's so quirky and weird. Pauline Chalamet.

I did love seeing Lucy Liu tho...Not that she is a good Mackenzie Scott stand in

⁨Manjula: also did they just completely disappear the Black Friend’s White Boyfriend (Who Knows Oddly A Lot About Designer Brands)?

Maggie: Ooooh. who they made so many homophobic jokes about in the first one!?

⁨Manjula:⁩ Yes!

Maggie: yes apparently. I mean they disappeared Adrian Grenier too

⁨Manjula: weird that Entourage Bro would turn out to have the most Artistic Integrity of them all  ….

Latria: I think I would be doing a disservice to so many people (myself included) by not pointing out that there are no fat people (that I remember) in this movie/fantasy/world. Outside of Tracy Thoms...no Black people really either.

And all of this speaks to the fact that even though I grew up around fashion/magazines bc my mom was obsessed...I knew I could never be a fashion writer, and unless I was very interesting as a personality, would never be in magazines.

But for them to decide to be "high fashion" at Runway with no real sense of cultural pulse and energy, is...a choice. I liked Andi's Gen Z assistant for a little smattering but it still fell short. And maybe that is how magazines actually are!

Maggie: The diversity was definitely shit. And yeah unfortunately I'm sure the problem persists at whatever is left of real magazines. The new assistant #2 is fat, though.

⁨Latria: Oh right the comedy dude. I forget his name.

Maggie: Caleb Hearon! And yes there was a lot of talk of “body positivity” that was played for a joke. Def a choice.

And what was with Andi's love interest?

Manjula: DO NOT EVEN GET ME STARTED.

I’m just glad Rahawa is not here, condo-developer love interest might do her in.

Maggie: they were trying something with the metaphor of building new within old but like..... did not land the plane? At all. And the chemistry was not there, I'm sorry.

⁨Manjula: Snoozeville

Maggie: he was not even cute? tho i appreciate he wasn't like 25 either

Manjula: 👍Also like, if you are a Real Reporter you are not dating a fucking condo gentrifier like it’s no big thing in 2026 NYC!

Maggie: right?

⁨Manjula:⁩ You should be dating a Zohran Mamdani Type!

Hold on, i have a screenplay to pitch.

Maggie: omg yes

Sorry to bring this back up but, i'm sorry... miranda should not have still been working at the end of this film. she should be having espresso in bed with kenneth branagh.

⁨Manjula:⁩ I am available. I mean, if she’s busy. don't tell Emma Thompson tho.

Maggie:🥵

And Andi should be writing her tell-all and like moving to Detroit to start a weekly community newspaper (funded by tell-all)

Manjula: Ok maybe not Detroit tho … as a white lady 😬She could pay for someone local to start a community newspaper in Detroit
and then return to working on her literary novel because YOU KNOW SHE HAS A DRAFT

Maggie: ok ok fair fair. Minneapolis. Or wherever the hell she’s supposed to be from. lol

Manjula:⁩ Simone Ashley! thank you perimenopause brain.

In conclusion I would like to say, please stop making sequels. Thank you.

This post was edited by Maggie Mertens.

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