10 Movie Characters Who Made Working in Media Look Fabulous

By Alexus Mosley

There was a time when movies made working in media look like the most fabulous career a woman could possibly have. You lived in a suspiciously spacious apartment in the coolest cities, wore heels to the office, and your desk was surrounded by magazines. There was always an important meeting to rush to, a story to finish, a television segment going terribly wrong, or an editor waiting impatiently for your next brilliant idea. And somehow, there was still time to fall in love.

From magazine writers and fashion editors to newspaper reporters and morning-show producers, some of our favorite movie heroines made careers in media look equally glamorous, chaotic, and completely irresistible. Here are 10 characters who had us ready to grab a notebook and start pitching stories.

Andie Anderson —How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

Photo Credit: *How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days*

If there is a patron saint of the fabulous fictional magazine journalist, it’s Andie Anderson.

As the resident “How To” girl at Composure, Andie spends her days writing lifestyle features while dreaming of tackling more serious subjects. Then she gets the assignment of a lifetime (or at least the assignment responsible for one of the greatest rom-coms of the 2000s).

Between her Manhattan magazine office, enviable wardrobe, and ability to turn her dating life into editorial material, Andie made magazine journalism look impossibly fun. And yes, we still want that yellow dress.

Rebecca Bloomwood — Confessions of a Shopaholic

Photo Credit: *Confessions of a Shopaholic*

Rebecca Bloomwood has one dream: working at fashion magazine Alette.

Instead, the fashion-obsessed journalist accidentally finds herself writing financial advice for Successful Saving, despite being spectacularly unqualified to tell anyone how to manage their money.

Under the pseudonym “The Girl in the Green Scarf,” Rebecca becomes an unexpected success by making finance accessible through the one subject she understands perfectly: shopping. A journalist with a shopping addiction writing about personal finance? Peak cinema.

Andy Sachs —The Devil Wears Prada

Andy Sachs doesn’t actually want a career in fashion.

The aspiring journalist takes a job as Miranda Priestly’s junior assistant at Runway magazine because surviving a year under one of publishing’s most powerful editors could supposedly open doors anywhere. What follows is perhaps the definitive movie depiction of the glamorous (and decidedly unglamorous) side of fashion publishing.

There are designer clothes, Paris Fashion Week and fabulous offices, sure. There are also impossible requests, ringing phones and one particularly urgent search for an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript.

A million girls would kill for that job. Andy wasn’t entirely convinced.

Jenna Rink — 13 Going on 30

Jenna Rink wished she could be thirty, flirty, and thriving, and then she woke up as an editor at Poise magazine, and honestly, not a bad deal.

Adult Jenna seemingly has everything her 13-year-old self could have imagined: a fabulous wardrobe, Manhattan apartment, glamorous magazine career, and grown-up social life. Of course, she quickly discovers that getting everything you thought you wanted doesn’t necessarily mean becoming someone you like.

But we still want to go into the Poises offices.

Maggie Prescott —Funny Face

Before Miranda Priestly, there was Maggie Prescott.

The formidable editor of Quality magazine sends photographer Dick Avery and reluctant model Jo Stockton to Paris in pursuit of the publication’s next big fashion moment.

Played by Kay Thompson, Maggie is commanding, stylish, and completely devoted to her vision of what fashion should be. And with Funny Face arriving in 1957, she proves Hollywood was romanticizing the fabulous fashion-magazine editor decades before the career-girl movies of the 2000s.

Think pink!

Lane Daniels —Beauty & the Briefcase

Lane Daniels may be one of the most underrated members of the fictional-journalist hall of fame.

The aspiring writer wants to work for Cosmopolitan and pitches an undercover story about finding love in the workplace. Her solution is to get a corporate job, secretly date eligible men around the office, and document the entire experiment.

Journalistic ethics aside, it is exactly the sort of delightfully unrealistic assignment that made 2000s movies about magazines so much fun. A fabulous wardrobe, a magazine assignment, and a romantic experiment disguised as reporting. We so miss this genre.

Carrie Bradshaw —Sex and the City

Carrie Bradshaw turned her love life into copy long before personal essays became an entire corner of the internet. By the time Sex and the City made the jump to the big screen, Carrie had evolved from newspaper columnist to successful author while remaining one of pop culture’s most fashionable writers.

Her career wasn’t fashion journalism, but fashion was inseparable from the way Carrie moved through the world. Manolos, deadlines, Manhattan, and turning your questionable romantic decisions into material? Few characters sold the writer-in-New-York fantasy better.

Josie Geller —Never Been Kissed

Josie Geller gets an assignment considerably more terrifying than interviewing a celebrity: going back to high school.

The Chicago Sun-Times copy editor finally gets her chance to become a reporter when she’s sent undercover as a student to investigate teenage culture. Unfortunately, Josie’s actual high-school experience wasn’t exactly something she’d been eager to relive.

Unlike some of the glossy magazine worlds on this list, Never Been Kissed gave us an old-school newspaper fantasy, newsrooms, editors, undercover reporting, and the thrill of finally getting your byline.

Becky Fuller —Morning Glory

As an ambitious television producer, Becky Fuller takes over struggling morning show DayBreak and becomes determined to save it, even if that means managing enormous personalities, ridiculous segments and one deeply reluctant veteran journalist.

She’s perpetually running, stressed, and solving someone else’s emergency. In other words, media.

Becky made the behind-the-scenes machinery of morning television the star, and somehow still made the chaos look like a career worth wanting.

Abby Richter —The Ugly Truth

Another woman attempting to keep morning television from falling apart is Abby Richter.

The successful producer is competent, organized, and deeply invested in her show. Then ratings problems bring Mike Chadway and his outrageous relationship segment, “The Ugly Truth,” into her professional life.

Naturally, they can’t stand each other, so you know where this is going.

Abby fits perfectly into one of our favorite movie archetypes as the extremely capable media woman who can manage an entire television production but cannot understand why her personal life refuses to cooperate.

These movies belonged to an era when Hollywood loved giving its female protagonists careers that felt as integral to their identities as their romances. They wanted promotions, bylines, and their magazines to succeed. They wanted to prove themselves to impossible bosses, and they usually did it while wearing a great coat.

Maybe that’s why we’re still so attached to these characters. Beneath the fabulous offices and suspiciously generous salaries were women who were ambitious, creative, and excited about what they did.

They made working in media look fabulous. And frankly, we’re still buying the fantasy.

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