Village people

I didn't want to see The Devil Wears Prada because, coming off my recent happy stay in chick-lit land (courtesy Megan McCafferty's books), I decided to crack TDWP's spine . . . only to put it down with something like disgust. (If I were the book-hurling type, I'd've hurled.) It felt like a barrage of product placement—brand names, prices—ugh. Why not just put ads in the books? (One of the virtues of McCafferty's heroine is that she doesn't like to shop.)

But maybe I'll see the movie. This is from the entertaining Hoberman review in this week's Voice:

At once coolly indifferent and fanatically detail-obsessed, coiffed off-white hair emphasizing a hawk's hooded gaze, Streep is the scariest, most nuanced, funniest movie villainess since Tilda Swinton's nazified White Witch. To hear her dulcet exasperation—"I just don't understand"—is to experience what comic books used to call the Vault of Horror...Cinderella resigns but rather than writing a nasty kiss-and-tell, gets a real journalistic job (at The Village Voice circa 1990 per Sunday, June 18's Arts & Leisure section), bouncing into the sunset à la Mary Tyler Moore circa 1970. Miranda smiles to herself, as well she might. The Devil Wears Prada is a tour de force for Streep, who gives her character an unexpected measure of depth, and vindication for Anna Wintour—she who cannot be represented unless it's by Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

* * *

Which is to say—I loved Tilda Swinton in Narnia (and Depp in Charlie), and I have a mild obsession with seeing The Village Voice in pop culture, even if it's just a shot of those red streetside boxes (as in Eyes Wide Shut's meticulously soundstaged Gotham). I also spotted Voices in the Ed Harris character's room in The Hours (high point of the movie?!).

I recall reading that the Brooke Shields character (in that Suddenly Susan sitcom) worked for the Voice, or got fired from the Voice . . .

The protag in Bright Lights, Big City has written book reviews for the Voice . . . (as did McInerney, pre-BLBC) . . .

. . . and someone tells me that an upcoming novel also features a character who writes book reviews for the Voice. (What an exciting job!)

They Might Be Giants fans might be familiar with the conversational scrap (on the "Hotel Detective" single, I think) in which a very Noo Yawk–sounding woman is expressing her perplexity over TMBG's Dial-a-Song service, which she has seen advertised in the Voice. (If I recall, she's so prolix that her interlocutor is basically reduced to saying, "Yeah, yeah," and occasionally, "Naww, naww...")

Any other examples, Dizzyheads?

UPDATE: Reading the Times piece cited in the Prada review, I see that the heroine doesn't necessarily wind up at the Voice proper (but at a Voice-like publication—not sure whether it's named or now).