Met Gala Wears Prada: Who Owns Culture Now?

The Met Gala conversation has moved quickly from what people wear to who shapes the room. That shift is familiar if you step back from the moment. We have been here before. For centuries, culture has been negotiated at the intersection of art and money, beauty and patronage, elites who define taste and a broader public that accepts, resists, or redefines it.

When Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos stepped in as lead sponsors and honorary chairs, it was described as philanthropy. In historical terms, it is patronage. From the Medici to modern foundations, those who finance cultural institutions influence what is presented, preserved, and elevated. The mechanism changes. The dynamic does not.

At the same moment, The Devil Wears Prada 2 opened to a $80 million domestic and $235 million worldwide weekend, supported by more than half a billion in social reach. While those numbers matter, the underlying signal matters more. Audiences did not show up because something new arrived. They showed up because something familiar returned with clarity.

The 2006 The Devil Wears Prada was a precise study of how taste becomes power. Meryl Streep embodied the figure who decides what is in and what is out, and by extension, who is seen and who is not. That character resonated because it reflected a structure people recognize, whether they are inside it or navigating around it.

Here historical tension arises again. Many people use the language of ‘high art’ and ‘low art’ as if it describes quality. It does not. It describes position. It reflects a judgment about whose taste is authorized and whose is dismissed. The term itself carries the imprint of those who have had the power to define it. Across time, the so-called low becomes high when institutions adopt it, and what is labeled high can lose relevance when it no longer connects to lived experience.

What we see this week is that dynamic in motion. On one side, you have institutional influence shaping the frame. Capital, access, and legacy organizations determining how culture is presented and who participates in that presentation. On the other side, you have audience response driven by recognition, memory, and emotional alignment. People are not waiting to be told what matters. They are signaling it through attention, conversation, and participation.

Even though these forces are not new, what is new is their visibility and speed.

The success of The Devil Wears Prada 2 illustrates that audiences are not passive recipients of taste. They are active participants in defining it. The film is performing well not only because of its cast or its marketing, but because it connects to a shared understanding that has persisted over time. That is a form of cultural authority that does not originate in institutions, even if it is amplified by them.

At the same time, the Met Gala demonstrates that institutions still play a central role in shaping context. They determine which expressions are elevated, how they are framed, and who has access to that stage. Patronage has always carried this dual function. It supports art and it influences its presentation.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a wonderful film (I highly recommend it) in part because it is so of-the-moment; its inciting incident is the crisis of legit journalism today. The film begins with a major print journalism team winning an award for their reporting while simultaneously being downsized and fired – by text. Quite the echo of the recent gutting of the journalism staff Washington Post, which, full circle to the Met Gala, is owned by Jeff Bezos. 

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present you with Exhibit A in the ongoing negotiation between art and money, between the structures that enable visibility and the communities that generate meaning. For creators, founders, and leaders, this is not an abstract debate. It is the system in which your work will live.

Quality alone does not determine impact. Context does. Where your work appears, who associates with it, and how it is framed all influence how it is received. At the same time, alignment with an audience that finds meaning in what you do is what allows it to sustain attention over time.

This is why the language of high and low is less useful than understanding how taste moves. Culture is not static. It is continually redefined through interaction between institutions and audiences. Each side influences the other. Neither has complete control. 

A major cultural event shows how power shapes the frame. A major film shows how audiences validate meaning. Together, they remind us that culture is not owned in a simple way. It is contested, negotiated, and renewed through the interaction of these forces.

How do you perceive the ways culture is shaped? Where do you choose to locate your own work within that system?

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