Smothered by the Future
I recently stumbled across an unlikely source of shrew wisdom: The Devil Wears Prada 2. Yes, the sequel to that glossy, champagne-soaked fashion satire centered on the cutthroat world of Runway magazine. In the middle of all the stilettos and backstabbing, a character named Benji—played with oily smugness by Justin Theroux—delivers a little monologue that stopped me cold. Benji is the quintessential modern ass: a slick, soulless technocrat who views the erosion of beauty, craft, and human meaning as not only inevitable but somehow progressive. He has zero nostalgia for the old world and even less concern for what gets crushed under the wheels of “the future.” To him, the disappearance of the human soul from any industry—fashion included—is just collateral damage on the road to efficiency and disruption. He doesn’t mourn it—he shrugs, maybe even smirks.
And yet, in his casual nihilism, Benji accidentally speaks a deeper truth that most sheep would rather scroll past. Here’s the relevant stretch of his speech (lightly trimmed for flow):
The world is changing so fast that sometimes I can’t even comprehend it… tradition? I think the day is coming, perhaps very soon, where Runway won’t need models or locations or even designers. It’ll all just, you know, be AI… The future just comes rushing at us like the lava of Pompeii. And our job is just to let it take what it wants to take. One day, it’s going to come and smother us all. And maybe that’s the way it has to be.
Oof.
There it is—the cold, corporate shrug at the death of soul. Benji doesn’t fight the lava; he welcomes it. He’s perfectly comfortable watching artistry, human touch, and genuine creativity get buried under algorithms, efficiency metrics, and whatever flavour of technocratic takeover is trending this quarter. The fashion industry is merely the glittering example on display, but we all know the same forces are devouring music, writing, therapy, education, and whatever scraps of authentic human connection we have left.
So what else is new these days? I have to admit, I was rather taken aback that a message from Hollywood would land so squarely in shrew territory. Trust me, this movie was not my first choice—my wife wanted to see it—but it turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. Well . . . maybe “enjoyable” isn’t the right word—“compelling”?
I’ve become extremely sensitive to these contemporary themes, especially the obligatory celebration of powerful businesswomen. Not that such women don’t exist; there are thousands of highly capable ones. But Hollywood’s usual habit of pitting smart, savvy women against stupid, incompetent men tends to raise my hackles. This film, to its credit, largely avoided that tired trope. It was simply a story, and for the most part, a well-told one.
The fashion world itself still rubs me the wrong way with its vapid, insanely materialistic elite posturing. And yet, oddly enough, the movie forced me to acknowledge something I rarely consider: there is real human art and “out of the box” creative courage in that glittering circus. Some of the over-the-top fashion, the wild parties, the eccentric characters—it was strangely refreshing.
One scene halfway through the film drove the central theme home with unexpected poignancy. Andy (Anne Hathaway) bursts into Nigel’s office (Stanley Tucci), visibly rattled, warning him that the corporate takeover—Benji and the technocratic suits—is sucking the soul out of Runway. Human judgment, instinct, and personal taste are being replaced by algorithms, data dashboards, and efficiency metrics. Everything that once gave the magazine its life and character is being methodically erased.
Nigel, ever the picture of elegant composure, barely looks up. He’s quietly flipping through physical photo proofs the old-fashioned way. While Andy is in mid-rant about the impending death of creativity, Nigel simply points to one layout and says, almost to himself:
I feel the crossbody over the front is best . . . That’s what I think.
In that small, understated moment, Nigel quietly embodies exactly what Andy (and we) are mourning. Amid all the corporate noise and soul-sucking change, he is still doing what he does best. He feels this works better. That’s what he thinks. And that instinct—that irreducibly human instinct—is what actually matters. It’s a fleeting, almost throwaway affirmation of subjective human taste in the face of the coming lava.
After presenting Benji’s Pompeii speech first in this article, this quiet Nigel scene lands like a gentle counterpunch. One man casually shrugging as humanity is buried under the lava of progress; another stubbornly continuing to exercise the very human spark that progress seeks to eliminate.
Even though this Nigel moment actually occurs earlier in the film, it feels like the perfect emotional and thematic response to Benji’s cold acceptance of the coming deluge.
So, why am I making such a big deal of this Hollywood monstrosity? I just thought it was interesting that the mainstream got this one right—the loss of humanity through the loss of soul, art, and creativity. AI equals the death of heart and soul.
It does seem the liberal mindset finds AI threatening as well. We do have that in common. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe it isn’t. We may come to similar conclusions regarding Mr. Trump, but if we do, it will be for very different reasons. Again, we’ve all been perplexed by what does and doesn’t send the sheep into a collective meltdown. I, for one, have often wondered why we don’t see eye to eye on so many issues. Oh, right—I forgot. They’re simply told what to be outraged about and what to ignore. Silly me.
So, does that mean we should be suspicious when we actually find common ground? Probably. Why has the agenda put AI on the “do not play with” list and encouraged all its followers to warn that AI will destroy humanity? Since when have the sheep given a hoot about actual humanity?
Even though one of Hollywood’s recent money-making babies, The Devil Wears Prada 2, nails some poignant points, I wouldn’t be dancing in the street about it. All the glitz and glitter in the film made me nauseous at times, and the obsessive focus on the materiality of our culture was downright dumbfounding. But as Benji so “eloquently” put it, “ . . . maybe that’s the way it has to be.”