Diary of a Gen Z Student: Fat-shaming in The Devil Wears Prada makes for an uncomfortable rewatch (2024)

Experiencing as an adult, something that was probably quite formative for me, as a little girl. My malleable mind, watching it as my sisters painted my tiny, seven-year-old nails.

So, I was disappointed as the film described Anne Hathaway as the ‘fat girl’, while she is objectively thin. I was surprised that this was a normal film for young girls – like me and my sisters – to watch. The impact is so obviously deleterious.

The film’s treatment of thinness, its idealisation of it, is uncomfortable to me now, as a 20-year-old woman. Because it’s painfully clear where the seeds of negative body image were planted, for so many children.

We think we’ve moved on from the darkness of ‘heroin chic’.

Kate Moss saying ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, seems like a relic of the past.

But then we all see Kim Kardashian’s impossibly tiny waste being lauded at the Met Gala last week, and Ozempic trending on social media. And that darkness, suddenly, doesn’t seem so far away.

It’s hardly surprising that so many people, and girls in particular, grow up with such damaged perceptions of their body. The logical conclusion is to see your body as problem that needs solving.

This is something that every woman knows. I’ve certainly experienced it, too. As a woman, your body becomes an object for discussion. Primary school, was when I first heard girls mention diets and their weight.

In between our Friday spelling tests and learning long division, girls mentioned that sugar makes you fat.

And that’s something we should be scared of. And being thinner is something we should all aim for. We were 10. And let’s be clear: these ideas don’t exist in a void.

When we’re consuming movies that praise thinness, it’s totally predictable that we would develop that thinking fairly quickly.

And it’s not just movies. It’s cultural. I’ve never been overweight. From early on, I was praised for being thin.

When I was 11, an adult asked me if I was eating at all, because I looked great, apparently. Then imagine the fear that develops then when you hit puberty.

Your body changes. You put on weight, as a growing body is designed to do. But you are also aware that the thing you’ve been so heavily praised for, your weight, is changing. And people will comment on it.

But at 15, you’re told you’re so lucky to have those measurements. And you sigh with relief. Because every magazine, film, and TV show you’ve ever watched has portrayed weight as social currency.

Everything you’ve been told about beauty is about adhering to a socially constructed ideal. Unfortunately for women, that socially constructed ideal is a body that is closer to that of a child, than a grown woman.

So, you’re glad when someone you don’t even know gives you their stamp of approval.

And negative body image will pervade every part of your life, if you let it. It’ll taint every clothes shopping experience. Every occasion where you have photos taken, will be soured.

When I was trying on a debs dress, I was told that I wasn’t thin enough for a particular style. ‘That one’s designed for a twig.’

Now, that comment was certainly simmering away inside my head on the day of my debs. As photos were being taken, it was all I could think of. An utterly unremarkable experience, sadly.

And it’s such a loss. That generations of women, have been conditioned to dislike their body. To ceaselessly pursue an unattainable ideal.

Because no one ever gets to the dress size and is satisfied. Because it was never about any dress size, really. Your body was never the problem. Your body being objectified, open for discussion and scrutiny, rather than being celebrated for the miracle that it is.

That’s the real problem. Conditioning children to view their body through the eyes of others. To be unable to view their body as the gift that allows them to experience everything that it is to be alive.

That’s the tragedy.