Employee wellbeing through the lens of cinema: an organizational behavior analysis of The Devil Wears Prada

Purpose This paper interrogates how elite work cultures normalize overwork, emotional discipline and identity sacrifice through cinematic representation. Focusing on The Devil Wears Prada, it examines how gendered authority and aspirational endurance are constructed and legitimized within popular culture, extending qualitative scholarship on wellbeing beyond organizational behavior frameworks. Design/methodology/approach Adopting an interpretivist and critical qualitative orientation, the study conducts a theoretically informed film analysis drawing on feminist organizational theory, emotional labor scholarship and political economy perspectives. The film is treated as a cultural and ideological artifact rather than a reflection of empirical organizational reality. Theoretical lenses function as sensitizing concepts guiding interpretive engagement and analytical generalization. Findings The analysis shows that extreme job demands and emotional regulation are framed as markers of professional legitimacy within prestige-driven environments. Overwork is simultaneously glamorized and subtly problematized, producing an ambivalent narrative that normalizes identity sacrifice while preserving its desirability. Gendered leadership authority emerges as structurally disciplined rather than individually pathological. Research limitations/implications As an interpretive analysis of a single cultural text, the study advances analytical rather than statistical generalization. It contributes to qualitative research debates by positioning cinema as a methodological resource for theorizing contemporary work cultures and wellbeing discourse. Practical implications By revealing how overwork and emotional discipline are culturally legitimized, the study invites organizational leaders and scholars to critically examine the symbolic narratives that sustain high-demand environments and normalize self-sacrifice. Originality/value By integrating feminist and political economy lenses within a cultural studies framework, the paper repositions workplace cinema as a theoretically productive site for interrogating elite organizational norms.