Pygmalion and Pretty Woman Essay

I feel dependable standardised Julia Roberts in delightful womanhood except for that whole hooker thing.Its no surprise that Laney, the speaker of these words and heroine of 1999s Shes distri thatively(prenominal) That should feel that way. She could see just as easily said that she felt like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady because Shes All That is the latest example of a series of delineations ground on the Pygmalion myth, an occurrence that illustrates Hollywoods long fascination with this myth. The original Pygmalion theme is found in Ovid. Pygmalion is the story of a gifted young sculpter who is a woman hater. Ironically, the sculpture that most fascinates him and that he puts all of his maven into is a statue of a woman. The statue is exquisite, scarcely Pygmalion wasnt content. He kept tweaking the statue, working on it until it was so well-made that it looked real, and no differentwisewise womanreal or sculptedcould comp be. Pygmalion reached a point, however, whe re he could improve null else on the statue, and he fell in get laid with his creation.The poor sculpter tried to pretend that the statue was real he caressed it, tried to dress it up, brought it the gifts he thought a real woman would enjoy. Ultimately, his pitiful situation of his craze came to Venus attention. On the goddess of loves feast day, Pygmalion asked the goddess to let him find a maiden like his statue. Venus knew what Pygmalion really wanted, however, and the flames on her altar leaped up three times, signalling that Pygmalion would get his wish. When Pygmalion arrived home, he discovered that his statue was alive. He named her Galatea, and the two of them were married. What the Pygmalion myth boils down to is a man who creates a woman exactly as he would like her to be. Hollywood remains faithful to the basic events of the myth in each film interlingual rendition it creates.In each film, a man takes a flesh and blood woman and recreates herusually by means of a p hysical makeover but sometimes the makeover goes deeper into thoughts and manners each man also has the man go in love with his creation now that she is the way he wants her to look, dress, and act. plot of ground Hollywoods films accentuate to have the male creator realize somewhat during the course of the makeover that the woman is a person in her own slump, the actual perception of the mans noble awakening is weak. Each film interlingual rendition ultimately conveys the idea that the woman is not a worthy individual in her own right until she is molded by the man. Hislove, now that she is worthy of it, brings her to life.My Fair Lady, the film musical starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, is actually based on the earlier play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The Galatea in this film is Eliza Doolittle (Hepburn), a poor, dirty flower trafficker in twirl of the century England. The Pygmalion in this film is Henry Higgins (Harrison), a cocky, sexist linguist and phonetic ist who believes that expression is what really sets the shed light ones apart. He wagers with Colonel Pickering that by dint of a change in dress and diction, he can turn the lower class Eliza into a lady that leave fool exalted conjunction. The only thing in the wager for Eliza is that she might be able to splay her own flower shop and somewhat bunk her lower class roots. He bullies Eliza and treats her as an object. To him, she is only an experiment, and it enters as a shock to him that she has feelings and opinions of her own.Higgins succeeds in turn of events her into a proper lady, but the irony is that as a proper lady, Eliza has almost become a statue, an object. She was a real woman in her natural state. Higgins experiment has robbed her of her identity and her natural feelings and has left her with likewise much class to ever be able to achieve her dream of being able to open a flower shop. She is no longer functional with her higher class diction and appearance , Eliza is now decorative. While the movie ends with a sense of a love match between Higgins and Eliza, it is unconvincing. In Shaws play, Higgins and Eliza never get together, and the film never quite convinces the audience that Higgins Pygmalion falls in love with his Galatea. elegant muliebrity is the early 90s take on the Pygmalion myth. The time is modern and the setting has changed to California. The Galatea role has been likewise updated. Instead of being a lower class flower girl, the Galatea is Vivian (Roberts), a prostitute with little education. Vivians Pygmalion is Edward (Gere), a wealthy businessman who first appears to have little heart or little take on for another person. The two meet over a car and continue their acquaintance because Edward needs a date for his social functions while in California. What is interesting near this film is its reversal of roles. Vivian and Edward fulfill some(prenominal) the Galatea and Pygmalion roles. Vivian undergoes a physical transformation through the designerclothes necessary to her role as Edwards date, and her new appearance seems to transform her life as she decides to leave prostitution and endows her with a new sensitiveness and nobility.Edwards physical alteration of Vivian through clothes and the exposure to a much civilized society seemingly transforms her from a pretty doll into a real person, making her now worthy of him, and allowing a real relationship to develop between them. Interestingly, though, Vivian isnt the only one who changes in the film. While Edwards physical appearance and outer reality need no work, his spirit does. He is the real statue, woody and without feeling. As Vivians noble nature begins to emerge because of her outer transformation, she begins to work transforming magic on him. He becomes a real person capable of feeling and capable of being the prince that Vivian desires. As a result, bonny adult female might retell the Pygmalion myth the most faithfully. Just as Pygmalion became able to love a woman because of how his creation affected him, Edward is changed and improved through Vivian, his own creation.Shes All That, 1999s translation of the Pygmalion myth and starring Rachel Leigh Cook and Freddie Prinze, Jr., is probably the weakest adaptaton of the myth. Unlike the characters in the previous films, the characters is this film are high school students, and the setting has been moved to a high school. Like the other two films, Shes All That tries to make a social commentary by pitting the higher class, wealthier man against the lower class, poorer woman. The movie begins with rich, handsome Zack (Prinze Jr.) returning from Spring Break to find that his rich, beautiful, and vain girlfriend Taylor has dumped him for a former footslog member of MTVs The Real World. This rejection doesnt sit well with Zack, who is practically king of the school. Attempting to raise Zacks spirits, his best friend Dean makes a wager for Zack to prove his superior charms by turning both girl into a prom queen in six weeks. The guttersnip they select is Laney (Cook), a lower class Bohemian artist and outcast who unconvincingly hides her beauty under heavy glasses, paint-spattered clothes, and low self-esteem. Unlike the other films, the makeover in Shes All That isnt a key element. In this film the makeover takes most tailfin minutes and requires only a skimpy red dress, contact lenses, makeup, plucked eyebrows, and a hair rebuff to turn ugly duckling Laney into the swan.There also appears to be no othertransformation in Laney and Zack other than the five minute makeover. Unlike the other two films and the original myth itself, their characters do not grow. Zack is already a pretty good zany who never struggles with Laneys eccentricities or has any emotional problems he must overcome. As for Laney, she may look better, but her character is exactly the kindred. Hollywood loves the Pygmalion myth as illustrated by the number of fi lms that retell the myth. The problem with Hollywoods film adaptations, though, is that they are often modify and anachronistic. Is it really necessary on the cusp of the 21st century to still be making films that have the male trying to transform the heroine into something beautifl and better than what she was before he came along?Why does Hollywood ever require the Pygmalion to be wealthy and handsome while the Galatea is poor and uglyat least surfacely? If filmmakers are going to continue to retell this myth, why assumet they breathe some ingenuity and tonic life into it? Perhaps they cannot because to some extent, all of the films miss the point of the myth. The myth isnt scarce about a man who created his ideal woman it is also about how two people transform each other into something better than they were before. Perhaps the best and most interesting example of the Pygmalion myth is Overboard, starring Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. In this film, Hawn is the rich, vain, and selfish one, while Russell is the decent, hard working, yet flawed Pygmalion. When the two are thrown together, their lives change. Hawn becomes caring and unselfish, performing as cheerleader to Russells reinvigorated Pygmalion. The two have fallen in love and changed each other for the better. moderately WomanBy Jim EmersonEdward Lewis (Richard Gere) is a working girl. So is Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts). Only she works on Hollywood Boulevard and he stays at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. You and I are both such convertible people, says the Wall Street corporate raider to the streetwalker. We both screw people for money. evenhandedly Woman sells itself as a contemporary Hollywood ottoman tale Pygmalion Meets Cinderella in Beverly Hills about two floozies, a confederation man and an indieprod hooker (she keeps her rates low in thefree marketplace by choosing to work without a pimp), who (supposedly) find redemption, or at least financial security, in each others lovin arms . The fairy tale aspect of the picture almost works like a charm, thanks to some bright and appealing comic performances (including Laura San Giacomo as Vivians hussy roommate and Hector Elizondo as the prim hotel manager) a a few(prenominal) snappy one-liners, and Garry Marshalls sitcom-bright direction, which tries but finally fails to bleach out the movies darker, scuzzier implications about what money can and cannot buy in Americas culture of greed.Edward has bought and paid for nigh all(prenominal) relationship in his adult life he treats everyone around him like an employee. While in LA for a week, he hires Vivian (originally in blonde wig, looking like a skinny, slatternly Angie Dickinson) to be his date for a series of business functions, including a fancy dinner and a polo match. Out of the bargain, she gets $3000 cash, a makeover, new clothes and a crash course in what fork to use. Unavoidably, they both get more than they bargained for because surprise they fall i n love. And that changes everything. Of course, Cyndi Lauper sang that Money Changes Everything. And in its original, darkly cynical incarnation, the script for Pretty Woman (which couldve been called Working Girl ) was called 3000, because it was about the money that makes men and women unequal. But even in this severely processed and polished Disney product, its not clear what has actually made the (unconvincing) difference in these characters lives the love or the money? Finally, all the movie says is that you can be a harlot in administrator offices or on the streets but if you look like you live in Beverly Hills, then people will suck up to you and it wont matter who you are or what you do to acquire your money, just as long as you spend lots of it.Of course, it is beyond the scope (or intention) Pretty Woman to target this into an ironic or satirical point. The bleak notion is just there on the screen, acknowledged and reinforced, but never questioned. Vivian (the designa ted chaste superior) compares what Edward does buying companies, dismantling them, and then selling the pieces for profit to stealing cars and selling the parts. Edward (the designated economical superior) argues that what he does is perfectly legal. It just doesnt occur to him (yet) that its also parasitical and ethically deplorable. This same lesson appears to have been lost on the makers of Pretty Woman. The movie itself is like a stolen carthats been assumption a spotty paint job in an attempt to conceal the true nature of the fomite underneath. Scratch this movies polished coat ever so slightly and youll see that Pretty Woman is a conflicted tale about prostitution and dreams how we prostitute ourselves to achieve our dreams, and how those dreams are defiled and compromised by our prostitution. For commercial reasons, the picture desperately tries to skirt or downplay its own underlying themes.Significantly, the crucial, ambivalent lines from Roy Orbisons title song are bu ried somewhere in the middle of the movies upbeat music mix I dont believe you/Youre not the truth/No one can look as good as you. Orbison, at least, knew that enticing appearances could be deceiving. Pretty Woman (the motion picture) does not. In this movie, the clothes make the man (or woman) and if you cry at the opera, it proves youve got a cultured soul. Pretty Woman brackets its urban fable with appearances by a black street hustler/panhandler/chorus, who strides through the picture hollering stuff like This is Hollywood where people come to fulfill their dreams Some dreams come true and some dont Believe in your dreams The first time this chipper married person shows up, his comments are juxtaposed with sleazy slices of life on Hollywood Boulevard (crack dealers, pimps, a murdered whore stuffed in a dumpster).His exclamations serve as an ironic (and chilling) comment on what tourists find when they actually hold out to the heart of Hollywood The mythologized home of Americ as movie dream factory has fallen into decline and corruption. And yet, when the chorus figure reappears at the films contented Ending, his spiel is suddenly meant to be taken at face value which, I guess, demonstrates just how corrupted the dream factory has become. So, what are this guys dreams? To prowl the streets of Hollywood day and night shouting at people? Pretty Woman doesnt wanna know It would have taken the mordant wit and satirical sharpness of a billy Wilder or a Preston Sturges to get you to appreciate both the emotional surface lie and the deeper moral truth inherent in a story like this and to fully explore the ironic contrasts between the two. But Pretty Woman isnt black comedy or satire. Its tepid, force-fed pabulum, with a few cold and bitter lumps that have slipped through the studio strainer which make it very hard for all but the most inattentive viewers to swallow. Pretty Woman cant handle the contradictions it raises. Its simply schizoid probably becau se theaforementioned screenplay has been subjected to major Disnification in the development process, tarted up with an imperative feel-good ending that negates every valid observation that has preceded it.At one point, Vivian speaks for Disney (and audiences) when tells Edward, flat-out I want the fairy tale. Inevitably, she gets it thus violating all muniment and character logic. She knows its not true, and so do we, but well take the Disney version so we dont have to think about it. Apparently, test audiences wanted to buy into the fantasy, too integrity and verisimilitude be damned. And so, a form of moral nausea creeps up on you as you watch Pretty Woman, growing from the realization that the unequal economic/power basis of this relationship isnt going to change, Happy Ending or not. Vivian herself recognizes as much. Nevertheless, all your (and, it seems, Vivians) movie-conditioned reflexes make you hope-against-hope that these two will stay together. You want the wheeler dealer with the Heart of Gold to make Edward see how degenerate his social and business practices are. You want him to play washrag Knight and rescue Vivian from the streets, carrying her off to his penthouse castle.You want those Pavlovian wedding bells to ring so that you can salivate. accordingly you recall the real world, and people like Ivan Boesky or Michael Milken, and you want to puke in disgust. Edward becomes the movies hero when he prevents an associate from raping Vivian and decides not to commit a comparably despicable business doing at work. During the Reagan 80s, moral decisions we used to regard as minimum requirements for anyone with a conscience have in some way become grounds for sainthood in the movies. Maybe Pretty Woman isnt really a sully romantic comedy after all, but a sort of latent horror film about the ethical/economic decay of America. Sounds like a hit