About this episode

Chris and Daniel discuss how 'The Devil Wears Prada' reflects cultural stagnation in Western pop culture over the past 20 years.

A movie from 2006 looks like it could have come out last year. The cars are the same. The computers are the same. The fashion, the cinematography, the music -- all of it effectively unchanged. Chris and Daniel use The Devil Wears Prada as a lens to ask a question that goes well beyond film: has Western pop culture simply... stopped moving? The conversation covers the film's craft -- Meryl Streep's uncommonly restrained performance, why the movie works better than it has any right to, and why Daniel reads Miranda Priestly not as a villain but as a Whiplash -style manifestation of what the main character actually wants. But the real thesis is bigger: the iPhone, social media, the collapse of risk-taking across studios and streaming, and why neither audiences nor executives are really to blame -- the incentive structure is. Chris and Daniel also get into the sin-eater problem, why indie film has lost its live-wire energy, and what it actually takes to stop doom-scrolling and just make the thing. Links and References What The Devil Wears Prada and Your iPhone Have in Common: Nothing Has Changed in Twenty Years > The Devil Wears Prada (2006, dir. David Frankel) The Devil Wears Prada 2…

People in this episode

Hosts: Chris, Daniel

Topics covered

• cultural stagnation
• film analysis
• pop culture
• risk-taking in media
• indie film
• cinematography
• fashion in film

Keywords

• The Devil Wears Prada
• cultural stagnation
• Meryl Streep
• film analysis
• pop culture
• risk-taking
• indie film
• cinematography
• fashion

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Suits, The Office, Frasier, The Big Picture podcast

Books & works: The Devil Wears Prada, Whiplash, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Swiss Army Man, Sinners

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