Have you watchedThe Devil Wears Pradarecently?
It holds up, right?
Andys chef boyfriend who spent too much on strawberries at Dean & Deluca?
If you re-watch the movie?
Her boyfriend was sort of a d*ck!
And same with her friends!
If you think about it?
Nate is the real villain ofThe Devil Wears Prada.
A monologue almost exactly like that has been repeating, ad infinitum, across every form of social media.
Given the amount of oxygen that seemingly inane conversation has been given, its worth asking: Why?
Its something in which I have indulged during various stints as an online journalist.
Heres the thing: Do I actuallythink that Belle should have ended up with Gaston?
What are you even talking about?
It is a fictional movie for children.
The characters, as presented in the movie, are very clear in their morality.
What I was doing was having fun.
And it is fun!
At least until people confuse hyperbolic Internet outrage for the purposes of entertainment as actual actionable public policy.
We get lonely.Life is lonely and hard.
American life in particular has been redesigned to bypass communal spaces.
We go from our beds to our jobs to our couches.
Walkable communities are rare, and so socializing with friends is limited to discrete and pre-planned increments.
Theres no commitment and near-infinite availability.
to make it get people to engage, you need a hot take.
Its not a bear with me, its a yeah, we know.
The counter-backlash.Here is the thing about movies and TV shows.
Counter to what Oscar movie montages set to swelling scores may lead you to believe, films arent thatimportant.
If anything, our updated analysis of characters is a reflectionof our different world, not a galvanizing motor.
People move on.Theres a new take.
Theres a new scandal.
We have chosen to live on the Internet, and so this is the hell we have built ourselves.
The eagle will peck at our liver every day until this is over.
This article was originally published onJune 30, 2023
