After watching “Grey’s Anatomy” during my junior year of high school, I immediately enrolled in “Anatomy One” hoping to be the next Meredith Grey or Christina Yang. But then I watched “Legally Blonde” and decided I was destined to go to Harvard Law School. “What, like it’s hard?” But finally, my stars aligned when I watched public relations powerhouse Samantha Jones from “Sex and the City”. I saw Samantha Jones’s glamorous lifestyle and decided I wanted to be just like her. So, thank you Netflix, because now, here I am a public relations major at The University of Alabama.
Television and movies have the ability to create expectations for our future. Viewers tend to scrap the fiction label and start daydreaming. When characters have similar careers to the ones viewers aspire to have, it could create unrealistic expectations.
The Devil Wears Prada
In “The Devil Wears Prada,” Runway Magazine hired Andy as a personal assistant to editor in chief Miranda Priestly. The environment is hostile, cutthroat and extremely fast-paced. Runway is a fashion magazine, and Andy appears as the opposite of fashionable and confident; she’s shy and kind of a pushover. As the movie progresses, Andy’s style develops, and she adapts to the hostile environment, developing a similar attitude to her coworkers to fit in.
Andy’s change in personality and style raises an important question: when entering the job force post-graduation, should new hires be expected to change themselves and adapt to the workplace conditions? Madeline Chadwick, former chief corporate affairs officer for Papa Johns noted that while her values and personality didn’t need to change to fit in, she does follow the philosophy of “dressing for the job you want to have.” Early in her career she found people that she admired at work who were levels above her and learned from them. Dressing for the job is important for showing up confidently for clients as well as coworkers, but it’s still important to be yourself.
While certain areas of the environment in “The Devil Wears Prada” are dramatized for entertainment, Victoria Dontato, a public relations intern at Fleishman Hillard (and former Platform Magazine writer) said “I haven’t felt like I needed to change myself at all. These agencies do a really good job when they’re interviewing.They put you where you will thrive based on your experience and personality.” She noted there can be positive changes like confidence and growth, but there isn’t a mold employees must fit at her agency.
As Andy’s personality develops throughout the movie, she loses sight of herself and her morals as she becomes increasingly invested in Runway. When transitioning from college to a full-time career, “more than 3 in 4 (76%) say work-life balance is a top priority for them when considering a job,” according to BestColleges. Despite Andy’s struggle with balancing her personal relations and mental health with her career, Donato’s been able to balance work and life with hybrid work, staying organized, spending time with friends and devoting time for herself. She noted, “If you are in a career that you truly enjoy, you’re not miserable every day. Obviously, I’m sometimes tired when I wake up, but once I get there and I’m in my zone, it doesn’t feel like it looks in the movies.
Sex and The City
In the early 2000s hit TV series “Sex and the City”, Samantha Jones is a bold, confident, glamorous PR executive. She’s outspoken and doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable topics. Different PR professionals bring their own strengths to the table to make the workplace well rounded. Instead of relating to Samantha’s character, Chadwick described herself as more of a quiet leader, and because she is more intentional about when she chooses to speak up, she gets feedback that “when you speak, we know we should pay attention.” Chadwick’s personal superpower is the thought and intention she puts into her contributions in meetings and group settings. It’s not to every professionals advantage to be as bold or as outgoing as Samantha.
Samantha’s job seems fabulous from high profile clients and VIP parties with no visible spreadsheets out or endless email threads. While there are many benefits to careers in PR, they might not be up to par with Samantha’s. More luxurious brands and flashy clients might have more perks but Chadwick notes, “The sexier it looks, the less challenging the work can be. At the end of the day, if the brand is already successful, there might not be as many interesting problems to solve,” Not all the best creative and strategic roles come wrapped in a pretty bow. Because of the prior success and norms that have already been formed by successful brands, there might not be as much room for growth and innovation.
How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days
Andie Anderson is the “How-To” girl at Composure magazine in the 2003 rom-com “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”. She writes fun, flirty articles for a female audience but wants to explore other areas, such as foreign affairs and politics. Chadwick and Donato both agreed that because agency life can be so diverse, working on different clients, agency employees can kind of get a taste of everything to seek out what they like most. Its possible to try multiple different hats on to see what fits best. Donato noted that she could see herself tapping into other sectors to become more versatile, but she is working on honing her craft in her current sector right now. Chadwick described not wanting to be known as one type of person, like the “food expert” or the “beauty PR girl,” and has tried to always stay curious and open instead of being tied down to one specific client or industry. Agencies can allow PR professionals to experience multiple different sectors and try new things, so they can be the “how-to girl” and then also be the “foreign affairs or policy” girl.
The Writer’s Perspective
When writes for movies and shows choose a character’s profession, they put thoughtful research into creating the character in order to balance entertainment and realism. To ensure accuracy, writers assistant at Netflix Megan Friend noted “If you can staff the room with a few people who have expertise in that profession, those people can be called upon to bring some of that knowledge.” When writers aren’t as sure of the profession they may have a consultant to fact check. Character creationand accuracy can depend on the message and focus behind the film. While there is research that goes into portraying the career accurately, the overall plotline can overshadow these career accuracies.
So, while these movies and TV shows have some inaccuracies and gaps, are they truly harmful to those with PR career aspirations? Or do they inspire us to pursue a glamorous career, only to fall in love with the mundane tasks that come with it as well? TV and movies can give us a dramatized version of a career path that we find aspirational. Sometimes fiction can just be a starting point instead of the blueprint.
