The Devil Uses Ozempic & Lies About it

During the filming of The Devil Wears Prada (2006), lead actress Anne Hathaway was asked to lose weight for the role of Andy Sachs, a decision Hathaway was encouraged to resist by costar Meryl Streep. When asked if production desired the same of her, Streep said scathingly, “They wouldn’t dare.” In the film itself, Andy is fat-shamed despite her dress size being a size 6 ( later a size 4), and the contemporary diet culture is referenced numerous times, as we see other Runway Magazine employees carefully measure almonds or openly starve themselves. The narrative decision to fat-shame Andy, and later congratulate her for losing weight, serves to both praise thinness and point out the absurdity of the hyperthin beauty standards of the 2000s fashion industry, and this juxtaposition has been unintentionally replicated for the sceptically anticipated sequel. 

During the press run for The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026), Hathaway and Streep have openly discussed their advocacy for body diversity among models in the film, expressing concern over exclusively showcasing hyperthin bodies amid the current Ozempic crisis. While this move should garner praise from the public sphere, many online were quick to point out that Hathaway appears to be using weight loss drugs of some kind, making her 2026 Andy Sachs visibly thinner than her 2004 counterpart. While speculation of actresses' bodies and weight is generally a moral faux pas, it cannot be ignored that the very mouth publicly airing Ozempic concerns may be swallowing pills of it off camera. 

The identification of this fact has brought a resurgence in rhetoric framing Anne Hathaway as a “difficult,” “mean girl” type, even going so far as to claim that her stance on body diversity served the purpose of ensuring that she would be the thinnest person on set. Historically speaking, the public eye tends to turn on popular, well-loved female stars the second they arbitrarily decide that they’ve flown too close to the sun and need to be taken down a peg, or several. It has already happened to Anne Hathaway once before, during her press run in 2012 for Les Misérables, when a few interview clips convinced the public that Hathaway was cold and disrespectful. In reality, the clips show Hathaway being curt, but by no means outright rude. Just as the cruelty shown to Hathaway in 2012 was largely based on misogynistic ideals rigidly outlining how women in the public sphere are allowed to behave, so is the backlash today. 

The statement is also a far reach that glosses over the realities of suffering from an eating disorder, which is likely the reality for many celebrities using weight loss drugs medicinally. One can be in the thick of a disordered mindset and way of being while simultaneously recognizing that the outward media landscape harmfully romanticizes and praises hyperthinness. The act of public intervention can, in this way, become a strange step towards self-intervention. Nevertheless, any public statement made with clear or widely speculated hypocrisy inherently loses gravity and a level of authenticity. Whether or not Hathaway is genuine, it comes off as contrived. It is the same reason why Megan Trainor can’t sing “All About That Bass” anymore; she has none. 

Namely, the emancipation of Hollywood is so disappointing because it reveals to the public that everyone who appeared to be happy in their own skin, given the choice, would choose to be thinner. Even those who resisted hyperthin beauty standards in the past have abandoned their posts in the war on women’s bodies for the promise of a magic little pill that promises everlasting beauty and a nonexistent appetite. Take Mindy Kaling’s character, Kelly, on “The Office,” who regularly pointed out the absurdity of the pursuit of thinness, consuming a foreign-bought tapeworm as a diet endeavor. Now Kaling herself has lost a significant amount of weight, crediting it to frequent hikes as opposed to admitting that she succumbed to the same behavior she used to make fun of. 

It is especially frustrating for those of us who remember witnessing this same song and dance before, as heroin chic raged in the late 90s and early 2000s, and thigh gaps clad in black skinny jeans ran rampant on Tumblr in the early 2010s. It would appear that every modern decade is destined to try and convince us yet again that skin and bone is the epitome of beauty, and to abandon any concerns we have over osteoporosis, immunodeficiencies, and infertility. 

What is especially concerning about this round of hyperthin-glorification is its breadth; now men are on Ozempic too, men are “looksmaxxing,” and macro-tracking, and no one is safe. What-I-eat-in-a-day and calorie-deficit recipe videos are inescapable on Instagram and TikTok, making it nearly impossible for the average social media doomscroller to escape the idea that they should be thinner, fitter, and above all, eating less. This is especially harmful for young folks new to media spaces who lack media literacy and may fall into the trap of believing that they need to be doing what they see online. 

It is also no coincidence that hyperthinness has reemerged during a conservative and fascist political regime in the United States. Male influencers who preach about macro-tracking are often the same ones approaching dating the opposite sex in an archaic, overly traditional yet simultaneously vulgar manner. It has once again been decided that women are at their best and most desirable when they are weak, frail, and easy to control. Women are outperforming men in various academic and career fields; this could not go on without some kind of intervention from the right, and said intervention is turning women's attention away from the outside world and towards themselves, their body, and whether or not it is thin and tight enough (it never is).  

Just as this house of cards was quickly built, it will surely come crumbling down as we collectively remember that choosing to live is more worthwhile than withering away in name of some arbitrary definition of “beauty.” Either that, or the trend cycle pendulum will simply swing to the other side again, and everyone will follow without critically understanding the roots or implications of hyperthin-glorification. My bets are unfortunately on the latter; trend cycles move more quickly than we can learn most lessons, something we seldom do in any case. 

One’s focus should not solely be on their body anyway; there is so much richness to be drunk out of life, so many more trees that bear more delicious fruit, so many more things to be than just some current parameter of “thin,” a bar that is continuously raised to dangerous degrees and always remains eternally unachievable. Be grateful for your spine and use it vehemently, lest malnutrition figuratively and literally cause it to atrophy.

Anna Viden is a senior majoring in Psychology with minors in Sociology and Media Studies.