The novel The Devil Wears Prada is a serious study of the power of labels to define a person’s worth. Author Lauren Weisberger was formerly assistant to the editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, Anna Wintour. Thus, the novel is based on Lauren’s earlier career with its addiction to fashion. The addictive ingredient is the glow, lure, and status of the designer label: Versace, Chanel, Christian Dior, Gucci, Manolo, and most supremely, Prada. The measure of a person is the label. Why the devil herself (the magazine editor in the movie version) wears Prada!
The bestselling novel takes the reader into the dazzling and dizzying world of fashion, where the value of an individual is sized up quickly by the fashion externals and the designer accoutrements. Of course, this system of “taking the measure of a person” is antithetical to the values of the Christian faith. The novel offers a protagonist who first loses herself in this fashion industry, then finds her way out of the malicious maze. The novel is a startling study of contemporary culture resembling Sodom and Gomorrah. (In the movie based on the novel, Meryl Streep is cast as the snooty editor of the fashion magazine. Although Streep’s character is nicknamed “Snow Queen” by her subordinates, there is a slight melting of her icy personality at the end of the movie. This is an unfortunate deviation from the novel because movie goers tend to leave the theatre saying, “Wasn’t she [Streep] cute?”)
The message of the gospel runs against the thematic cloth of The Devil Wears Prada. If the devil wears Prada, what do Christians wear? How do we understand our worth, especially when we counter the fashion culture with its external system of measurements? What do we wear besides clothing ourselves with righteousness?
And there are further esteem questions.
Lauren Weisberger’s second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, develops the theme that only the rich and famous are worth knowing. Set in the world of publicity and marketing, it challenges the reader again to assess self-worth. Protagonist Bette Robinson navigates Manhattan’s trendiest Public Relations firm. Everyone worth knowing is seen inside VIP rooms of Manhattan’s premier nightclubs. Self-love and self-worth are tied to glamour, notoriety, and popularity.
Loving Yourself for God’s Sake (Adolfo Quezada) always disappears from the seminary bookstore shelf before the semester’s syllabus is available. Students are attracted by the title. Adolfo Quezada, a therapist in Colorado, knows where most people struggle. We struggle to love ourselves. Quezada does not mean a narcissistic, self-aggrandizing love, or a spoiling of the self. Rather, he means a sense of self that is rooted in God’s desire and valuation. Take pleasure in yourself, he says, for you are the delight of God. Quezada’s short treatise is best read slowly. The theological texture is like eating a rich chocolate mousse; the spoonfuls of spirituality take some time to digest.
I have heard many sermons on love of neighbor and love of God. I have not yet heard one on love of self. The injunction to “love your neighbor as yourself“ is found in Luke 10:27ff. However, the last two words in the Lukan injunction have been inaudible in many cultures.
The three loves in Luke 10:27 mentioned in Jesus’ response to a lawyer are not well known. Love of God and love of neighbor are commonplace theological themes in teaching and in preaching and in praxis. The interconnection of the three loves, which includes love of self, is missing.
The injunction in Luke is followed by the parable of the Good Samaritan. I had always read this parable from the viewpoint of the Samaritan because I am a minister. The motivation for service is love of God. Love of neighbor is illustrated by the solicitude of the Samaritan, who cares for the wounded victim by the side of the road. When the Samaritan is understood as a glimpse of who Christ is, love of God is again implied in the text. Christ as Good Samaritan cares for the hurting and neglected traveler.
Many pastors and pastoral caregivers try to follow in the footsteps of this Samaritan. Once when I was depleted from caring for small children, aging parents, and clients in therapy, I moaned in the presence of biblical scholar Alice Hickox, “I am so tired of bending over, caring for the needy by the side of the road.” She remarked, “That is not the end of the story. ”
Surely enough, the Samaritan finished his/her journey, after distributing the weight of caring — by enlisting the aid of the innkeeper, by leaving the wounded at the inn, and by finishing the journey. It was indeed a responsible act for the Samaritan promised to return and repay any debts. This attempt to meet one’s own needs by finishing the journey is surely a manifestation of love of self. Secondly, a biblical grounding in love of self also comes from the gaze of the Samaritan who loved enough to stop. This gaze can only be seen if you are the person left for half-dead. In other words, you read the Lukan parable not only from the perspective of the Samaritan, but from the side of the road as well!
At the Gannon Center for Community Mental Health in Dubuque, Iowa, a middle-aged client felt “stuck” in therapy. I asked her to bring a baby picture of herself to a session. She had a deprived childhood and had difficulty even locating a baby picture in her mother’s basement. What she did bring was a picture of a radiant young baby girl, dressed for the photographer, in an unframed black and white photo from the 1950s. Each session, we put the picture on my desk and admired it, saying things like, “What a beautiful baby! What a precious child! How magnificently made!” We did this for some weeks, offering to this child “the gaze” of marvel. Of course, this child was still within my client, and we attempted to recapture the stage at which every child needs to receive “the gleam” from the eye of a beloved other. Psalm 139 depicts the gleam in God’s eye. Sometimes, you have to be in a posture “by the side of the road” or “stuck in a rut of therapy” to see this!
Fay Key, spiritual director in Adrian, Ga., describes the beam in her father’s eyes. “My daddy was a wonderful daddy. … When he first moved to Swainsboro he worked for a furniture store, and in the evenings he delivered furniture all over town. My mother and I must have ridden with him often. I grew up with people telling me that when he delivered furniture to their house he would say to them, ‘Now come out and see my baby girl.’ He would take me out of the truck and hold me in the beam of the headlights and say, ‘Isn’t she beautiful.’ That’s a powerful story for a child to grow up on. It is the way the Heavenly Father (Mother) sees us. Beautiful, every one.”
It is godlike to love the being of someone. In Gilead, a theological novel by Marilynne Robinson, protagonist John Ames writes a letter to his young son as he, John Ames, approaches his own death from heart disease. John Ames describes to his young son how much his mother loves him: “She has watched every moment of your life, almost, and she loves you as God does, to the marrow of your bones. So that is the honoring of the child. You see how it is godlike to love the being of someone. Your existence is a delight to us. I hope you never have to long for a child as I did, but oh, what a splendid thing it has been that you came finally, and what a blessing to enjoy you now for almost seven years” (p.136).
John Ames continues the letter to his young son: “I hope you are an excellent man, and I will love you absolutely if you are not” (73). “Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child, and that has to be true. … Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be prevenient courage that allows us to be brave — that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm” (245,246).
Loving ourselves, even liking ourselves for God’s sake, may require such prevenient courage for it summons the admission that our lives are indeed those precious blessings. We are clothed in grace.
Let the devil wear Prada!
Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner is an ordained PC(USA) minister, associate professor of pastoral care at Perkins School of Theology of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, chair of the Society for Pastoral Theology, and fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors.
