Devil Wears Prada

Female Leader Bias

After watching Devil Wears Prada, I can understand where Andrea is coming from when she states that Miranda would be given praise as a leader if she were a man. There is a definite bias from society where female leaders have not been seen as strong as male leaders and when they are strong leaders, they are seen as heartless. Take a recent example with Hillary Clinton and now Kamala Harris running for president, whether or not you supported either of them, they received hate for just being a woman. Many people have stated that being the president is a role better suited for a man because a woman might be too emotional or weak, etc.

Demanding vs Overbearing

When looking at the events of this movie, there is definitely a distinction that can be made between demanding and overbearing, especially for how Miranda acted. Demanding would be closer to ordering someone to do something while overbearing would be going out of your way to force someone to do something that is unpleasant. I believe Miranda Priestly could be seen as both an inspiring leader and a cruel tyrant depending on the perspective of who is looking at her. Throughout the movie she asks unbelievable tasks of her employees, especially our main character, and could definitely be seen as overbearing. While there is also a human element to her character and she seems to run the business in a way that keeps it at the top, it can’t be forgotten how she treated her employees.

Leader and Follower Dynamic

This movie showed Andy’s growth as a follower throughout the movie, originally starting as someone who thought she didn’t need to make as much of an effort to becoming the trusted assistant who went on the business trip with the CEO. Nigel and Emily both fulfill similar roles as being big followers of the leader since before the movie started and providing support to Andy as she continued her own growth as a follower. Miranda had a big personality that was very demanding and not very supporting so her followers needed to fulfill orders without expecting much reward for their efforts. Followers were scared to lash out against her and when Andy attempted to, it wasn’t met with much of a response.