The Gremlin Wears Prada

Throughout the movie “The Devil Wears Prada,” the protagonist Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) declares on multiple occasions “I don’t have a choice!” She not only says the words, she conveys her lack of freedom through her actions and facial expressions – in short, through her choices. The reason for her desperate cries of helplessness? Miranda Priestly (played with devilish brilliance by Meryl Streep), her boss and nemesis.

Andy comes to her job as Miranda’s assistant full of determination and with an attitude that she can handle whatever comes her way, without having to change who she is. She has to pay her dues before she can land a real journalism job; if she can survive the halls of Runway magazine, she can survive anywhere. Little did she know that she was going to come face-to-face with her gremlin, day in and day out, in the form of a demanding, merciless woman.

In coaching terms and as described by Rick Carson in “Taming Your Gremlin,” a gremlin is

“…the narrator in your head. He has influenced you since you came into this world, and he accompanies you throughout your entire existence… He tells you who and how you are, and he defines and interprets your every experience. He wants you to accept his interpretations as reality, and his goal, from moment to moment, day to day, is to squelch the natural, vibrant you within.”

Sounds a little like Miranda Priestly, if you ask me! What Andy encountered was her Gremlin in the flesh: someone who told her (through words or an intimidating up-down body scan) that she wasn’t pretty enough, thin enough, fast enough or bold enough. Andy may or may not have had those insecurities before coming into the Runway job. She was a woman of words rather than wardrobes. Yet all it took was a few scathing looks from co-workers for her to change her tune and don some Milano Blahniks while dashing around the perilous concrete jungle that is Manhattan.

Her inner and outer gremlin – “You’re not good enough and this is the only way to be good enough in our eyes” – took hold and took away her sense of being at choice. As a result, she offended friends, lost her boyfriend and was seduced by a world that was not in alignment with her core values.

This is the power of our gremlins. They can become overwhelming and alter our reality so much that we feel like we really HAVE NO CHOICE. Watching the movie, I felt Andy’s pain. She wasn’t just seduced by the glamor; she also seemed to be on a mission to prove that she could do the job, that she could make her gremlin happy, and that she was good enough. Quitting? That would have been admitting defeat.

In reality, Andy was always at choice. She could have walked away at any time. She didn’t realize that she was making choices everyday, and she was letting someone other than her true self dictate what was important to her. Andy finally woke up when she realized she was out of synch with the values that Miranda declared they seemed to share (when Miranda tells her in the limo that Andy “chose to get ahead. You want this life.”) That’s when Andy realized that she had been making choices all along, and they weren’t what she wanted. She said “I disagree” to the gremlin and tossed it out of her life.

I’d venture to say that we all have a gremlin of some sort, either in our heads or in the flesh (or both!). What Andy’s story tells us is that we can be seduced into believing the gremlin, because it knows what buttons to push. Now you know what button to push: No, Thank You! Once you hear clearly what the gremlin voice is saying, you have a choice to respond and make up your own mind about what’s true. Then maybe the gremlin can become less scary, more fuzzy. It’s protecting you from risk and harm (even Miranda probably believed that Andy risked ridicule and rejection if she didn’t do as Miranda said with regard to appearances, which is a form of protecting her).

Keep your gremlins in their place by asking “is that true?” when they challenge you. Ask “what are you protecting me from, and what are my choices?” Your gremlin may never become the cuddly cutie that cheers you on; it will, over time, become a catalyst for realizing that you are always, in every single second, at choice.

For Your Consideration:

• What does your gremlin tell you?
• What can you do to keep the gremlin in its place?
• How might your gremlin actually be serving you?