I am writing this report based on the film: The Devil Wears Prada (2006), particularly observing the main character with evident traits of being a leader, named: Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt) is also mentioned in the report for her managerial traits, however the focus on Emily as a manager deteriorates after Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) takes the lead.
Emily is not an obvious choice to be distinguished as a manager when watching the movie. But after watching closely for the second time, we see early on that in the absence of Miranda, Emily does take charge. Emily feels empowered, as she is namely the first assistant of the boss. As Andrea is a newbie, everything she learns is through Emily. Also Andrea’s sense of style reflects her lack of knowledge about the fashion industry. This then is seen as a weakness to Emily, subsequently changing the way she behaves towards her.
An example in the film that shows this is when Emily says:
(Devil; 00:14:33) “I mean you get coffee (sneers) and you run errands. Yet I am in charge of her schedule, her appointments, and her expenses. And um, most importantly, I get to go with her to Paris for fashion week in the fall.” Almost belittling Andrea.
(Devil; 00:17:35) “I will deal with this and you will go to Calvin Klein.”
(Devil; 00:19:26) “I get 20 minutes for lunch, you get 15. When I come back, you can go.”
From this dialogue, as a viewer I picked up the tone of voice as being very domineering. Notice how Emily emboldens herself with the use of the word “I” various times when she gives orders. Although this is only effective at the beginning as Andrea is still new to the job.
Emily may be the manager for a while during the start, but her traits suggest that she is not the legitimate leader. “However, this distinction between managers as traditional and rational while true leaders are charismatic is clearly an idealization and a rather simplistic one at that. In reality, leaders do...