Secretary. 50 Shades of Gray. I can’t think of any other movies right now that fall along those lines, but two seems like sufficient cause and also you know what I’m talking about. The kind of movie where a white man with a good job is sexually rude to a stammering woman in a cardigan, and says things like “Sexually, I’m more important than you, and my father invented helicopters,” and the lady says things like, “buh-buh-buh-buh-whaaa?” and “Okay” and “Should I take off my cardigan?” And, you know, Lord bless ’em, these movies, probably. But if we’re going to have movies where people strike one another about for sensual purposes, I think it’s only fair that at least one of them is a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada.
Okay, argument the first: Look at this, my friends.
Right? You gotta have a fancy dress party in one of these movies, because it’s super formal and stylized and even the slightest display of unusual behavior is ripe for humiliation. Plus Meryl Streep has the décolletage of Diana, goddess of chastity, the moon, and the hunt. You don’t even have to change anything, right? Andrea still has the unworthy boyfriend and useless friends determined to keep her from succeeding, she and Emily are still competing desperately for the chance to put away Miranda’s coat and fly to Paris with her, only now it’s, you know, tinged with sapphic frissons. “Everyone in New York wants to spend an hour alone in the Office with Miranda.” Why is it that in Serious Sex Movies you gotta capitalize things that don’t usually get capitalized to show they’re going to be doing it real seriously and also violently? I don’t know, but them’s the rules, so you have to call it the Office, instead of the room she has sex in.
Or like, it was tinged before, so I guess in the sequel it would have to be pretty overt. The blue sweater monologue would stay the same, though.
I mean, guys. Guys.
Guys.
Miranda would still end their sessions with a quiet, masterful “…That’s all,” only this time everyone would be on the floor in a grateful, quivering heap because she somehow found a way to eviscerate them spiritually and sexually at the same time.
And, okay, like, here are the two shots that frame the entire movie, okay? BAM, SEX-WISE:
It will take twenty minutes for Andrea to move to the other side of the desk when Miranda tells her to, and those twenty minutes will be COMPELLING. If you don’t want to watch two Valkyries in impeccable pantsuits wrest for sexual control for an hour and a half, I have no idea what to say to you. There is no joy left in your soul.
And here’s the end, right, because you gotta have a little role reversal in this kind of movie because otherwise everyone in the audience gets worried for whichever sex person is getting ridden like a fancy pony’s well-being.
This is the big Jane Eyre moment! “I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, or even of mortal flesh:–it is my spirit that addresses your spirit: just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal,–as we are!” And then there’s the big kiss, followed by the big filthy Final Sex Time, full of pantsuits and $400 belts being used for non-belting purposes. Guys, you don’t even have to reshoot that many scenes. That time where Miranda demands that Andrea bring her a $50 steak and then dismisses her with “I don’t want that“? KEEP IT. Making her find the unpublished Harry Potter book in a single afternoon? KEEP IT. That stuff is gold. Are you taking notes?
Thank you for your time. I look forward to seeing this movie within the next twelvemonth.
Tags: femslash friday, making people lesbians by argument, movies, things mallory does for no reason
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How have I never wanted this before now?? It is just so OBVIOUS.
Bisexuality…INCREASING.
This is literally everything I have ever wanted in a film. Holy shit, Mallory, I think you’re actually a witch.
Look, I’m not advocating that Mallory write a femslash!Devil Wears Prada/50 Shades crossover that you then pull to publish and then make actually good, except yes I am because THAT IS INGENIOUS YOU MAY HAVE FIXED THE GENRE.
“things mallory does for no reason very good reasons” fixed that tag. Love this!
I would watch this movie every day and twice on Femslash Fridays.
I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE omg thank you.
I’m convinced.
yes, Yes, YES!!!!!
*dies*
this would be a great improvement on Secretary for another reason too, which is that TDWP is a power fantasy about negotiating a relationship with your boss while getting good at your job [1] and Secretary is a fantasy about negotiating a relationship with your boss so that you can quit your job and have him pay you an allowance for getting spanked instead of a salary for doing a bad job filing his papers. it is a disempowerment fantasy about employment, not about sex, and it is a very wicked motion picture in that regard. the entire plot of the film is about how dumb it is to go to work when as long as you’re going to fuck your boss anyway, you can just be his wife and give up the pretense of earning your own money. the extent to which the exact postural details of the ways in which she fucks her boss are taken to be the overriding point of interest in the movie are a measure of how thoroughly the unemployment fantasy is believed to own women’s souls already. describing it as a movie about BSDM and repression is like describing Hamlet as a cautionary tale for indulgent mothers about the dangers of letting your son move back home after college.
[1] I think. not that I’ve seen it. but, you know, I feel like I have
(sorry, that is actually what Hamlet really is about. but if it weren’t, that is what it would be like.)
Additional fuel to your anti-Secretary fire: http://www.ohjoysextoy.com/secretaryand50shades/
i highly recommend charlotte stein’s power play, which turns the plot of secretary upside down and inside out and is also really hot. (the blurb on goodreads is kind of garbage though, so don’t let that put you off).
“Hamlet as a cautionary tale for indulgent mothers about the dangers of letting your son move back home after college”
oh my goddddd
*goes back in time to 9th grade English, changing minds and lives*
…That’s actually a really excellent way of describing The Devil Wears Prada that I would have never thought of.
This whole thing is AMAZING and needs to happen right away, but it needs a heaping dish of (goddess) Emily Blunt in the mix to really be An Instant Classic.
Now I want this and I will never have it and God I feel so unfulfilled right now. Take me to the parallel universe where this is a real thing.
Let me now tell you of the femslash sequel to Devil Wears Prada that is written in the form of a New Yorker article. It is all I have ever wanted.
It is also stylistically PERFECT, New Yorker fanfic should be a genre unto itself.
WAIT, LINK PLEASE?
http://archiveofourown.org/works/779835
It’s the sequel to the super long fic I linked below. Sorry/not sorry if reading this series eats up the rest of your day/week/month!
Would definitely appreciate a link or title for this, please and thank you.
OMG!!
BUT DOES STANLEY TUCCI GIVE SEX TIPS LATER IN THE DRESSING ROOM OR IS HE TIED UP IN ONE CORNER THE WHOLE TIME???
He is tied up in one corner the whole time observing and giving sex tips. The very last scene of the movie is him alone in the Sex Office after Miranda and Andie’s epic final scene, nonchalantly slipping out of his bonds in a matter of seconds and walking out whistling.
(can you tell how much I want this movie to be real)
I love you.
I’m pretty sure he still says “ALL RIGHT EVERYONE, GIRD YOUR LOINS.” *rimshot*
I’m just going to leave this here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/779826
Caveat: it’s been years since I read this, it’s over 200,000 words long, and I don’t recall it getting very 50 Shadesy or BDSM-y, or at least no more so than the movie already was. But if you want epic, well written Miranda/Andy, here it is.
Oh my GOD thank you for this. Never knew I wanted it and it totally ate my life for the last 24 hours or so.
This is it, I’m going down this rabbit hole, never to return.
OR, and hear me out on this – you just keep it exactly the same until that scene where she screws up the Book delivery in Miranda’s house and gets caught and must be Disciplined. You should edit the children out of this scene, the useless scamps.
That. Really. Works.
Ahem.
This is correct.
So what y’all are telling me is I need to finally sit my ass down and watch The Devil Wears Prada.
YES IMMEDIATELY ITS REALLY GOOD OK. 😀
Thanks! It’s not my type of movie, so I’ve never had any motivation to watch it. UNTIL NOW.
Oh, it’s glorious fun, and the CLOTHES, my God, the clothes.
Honestly though I would much prefer “Ayn Rand’s The Devil Wears Prada” of this very site.
Apropos of nothing, now that I really look at those stills of Miranda’s office, it really bothers me how lazy the set dressing is. This is the office of a woman who putatively publishes A Most Influential Fashion Magazine. It is explicitly modeled after Anna Wintour’s office / lair. So : right above Ms. Streep’s head is a Helmut Newton(-esque), which is as it should be.
But! At least half of the other photos aren’t even fashion photos. I see two cityscapes, one or two blurry landscapes, a photo of a Giacometti or other twiglike sculpture … come on. In Anna’s office, a solid 95% of the decoration is fashion photos, because She Is All About That Stuff. For comparison :
http://powermovesandpumps.com/wp-content/uploads/…
And then they double down by going the route of sticking tiny photos in huge frames to make them look “artsy.” Anna knows how to do it : the photo is at least twice as wide at the mat on either side, dude. Anna’s photos are functional; Miranda’s are “art,” and totally wrong for the character.
Absurd. It’s moments like this that really kill my suspension of disbelief (in a movie in which a full-time New York City chef complains about his significant other having too little spare time for a relationship, cough cough).
This is a very particular thing to have kill your suspension of disbelief but I gotta say, I dig it. And now I’m probably going to scrutinize the set of every CEO’s office I ever see in a movie ever again. So, thanks for that.
Never saw TDWP, but you make a compelling case.
This is basically the plot/objective of at least half of the DWP fanfiction in the world. There are some truly astounding longfics out there, many of which could be directly transformed into exactly the antidote to 50 Shades that we would all like to see.
There’s … Department of Work and Pensions fanfic? 🙁
THIS MIGHT BE THE PLOT OF “THE CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA” which i cannot wait for mallory to write about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbVHlm7RcDs
I guzzled my water at my desk while reading this because I am now the embodiment of the word thirst.
I would get over my loathing for Anne Hathaway in a flash if it meant a BDSM sequel with Miranda Priestly. Because I had never really found Streep all that attractive until I saw that hair and heard the disdain and oh man I would have been on my back in a second.
MALLORY. THIS IS INSPIRED.
I never knew why I was so dissatisfied by the ending (no, I totally did, she fought and overcame SO MUCH to succeed in that position, AND SHE DID, you don’t just throw that away; even if Miranda’s likely to screw you over one day the way she did Stanley, you bide your time and wait to trade on your own power and competence — also, her boyfriend was totally UNWORTHY).
Particularly love this:
Miranda would still end their sessions with a quiet, masterful “…That’s all,” only this time everyone would be on the floor in a grateful, quivering heap because she somehow found a way to eviscerate them spiritually and sexually at the same time.
If you don’t want to watch two Valkyries in impeccable pantsuits wrest for sexual control for an hour and a half, I have no idea what to say to you.
“Miranda would still end their sessions with a quiet, masterful “…That’s all,”
Kinks I did not know I had until this instant #372
Already on it. Like five pages into it.
😀
POST. IT. EVERYWHERE.
If we’re all sharing AO3 links, this one looks promising!
http://archiveofourown.org/works/779927?view_adul…
I feel like you may enjoy The Duke of Burgundy. It doesn’t have the same snap as TDWP, but it does have tons of Sapphic BDSM.
I logged in to reply to this! I LOVED Duke of Burgundy. My pal dubbed it “the quiet desperation of dommes”
I feel like you may enjoy The Duke of Burgundy. It doesn't have the same snap as TDWP, but it does have tons of Sapphic BDSM.
This is correct.
This is so hot.
Especially the ending.
I welled up as I read it
(at both ends)
This is so hot.
Especially the ending.
I welled up as I read it
(at both ends)
Oh my GOD thank you for this. Never knew I wanted it and it totally ate my life for the last 24 hours or so.
I can’t believe I didn’t see this. Time to seek out the fanfiction.
How did you manage to improve this mediocre, but Meryl Streep makes everything worth it movie not once, but twice?
But real talk, I hate the Harry Potter part. Not possible. Not possible. Don’t care how many smarmy Pulitzer-winners she knows, not possible.
That was the part of the book where I was like “no.”
Yeah, I’ve had this fantasy kind of a lot.
Yeah, I've had this fantasy kind of a lot.
Can we get a kickstart going to fund this? Because it needs to happen.
This would be great!
Ugh, this is so brilliant. I need to lie down. In the Office.
Clearly author wrote this either: hoping that everyone would be infected with their DWP fanfic addiction; OR, not knowing that there are several thousand DWP fanfics just waiting to be read.
If the latter, I’m glad to see that several people have have at least mentioned (and also linked!) said fanfic. Ten years on, and we’re *still* writing. Because…
…that hair, that voice… that’s all.