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You know, when I was a girl, I loved the movie Gigi. Great songs, lavish sets and costumes, an all-star cast, pretty much catnip for a girl who loves musicals, as I did and still do.
But watching it as an adult with a more critical eye, wow, is it ever a textbook example of the way privilege works to distort relationships.
It's set in turn-of-the-century Paris, and it's about a young extremely rich man named Gaston and a teen girl named Gigi, and their families. The young man's lecherous-but-cheerful uncle Honore is played by Maurice Chevalier. Honore's world is one of constant womanizing. He finds a girl/young woman he likes, he sets her up in a house and lavishes her with presents in exchange for sex until he tires of her or she cheats on him, at which point the girl is out (and now has no chance of getting married or much opportunities for gainful employment, so she's pretty much trapped into being a courtesan for the rest of her life whether or not that's what she wants). Life for Honore is pretty much an endless party with everything set up to go his way. Despite the fact that Gaston often and repeatedly says he's bored by/doesn't like that sort of lifestyle, Honore pushes him into it for the honor of men everywhere and as his patriotic duty to France. The escapades of Honore and Gaston include at least one cast-off woman attempting unsuccessfully to commit suicide, which is treated almost as a joke--what did she expect, after all?
Meanwhile, Gaston has one place he actually enjoys being. It's a small apartment occupied by a middle-aged woman (a former courtesan herself played by Hermione Gingold) and her granddaughter Gigi (played by Leslie Caron). Gigi is a teenager still in school, who receives regular lessons from her great-aunt (who was a far more succesful courtesan than her grandmother) about all the necessary social graces to capture a man's attention. How to take tea and coffee, how to choose cigars, how to eat, how to tell real jewels from fake ones, how to sit and how to stand, etc. Despite this, Gigi is fresh and forthright and honest, and although sweet she tells things like they are. She and Gaston have lots of fun playing cards and other such games in their apartment while her Grandmama fawns over Gaston. Any time Gigi says something that might upset Gaston, she gets scolded for it, whether it's true or not--and that includes sticking up for herself when he gets mad at her.
Gigi gets older, and her great aunt says she's ready to be a courtesan despite the fact that she has no interest in being one, and who better than the rich dude who already knows and likes her? So next time Gaston comes by and wants to take Gigi out in a ride in his motor car, Grandmama says she can't--she'll be labeled if she does that. Gaston storms out--how dare she point out that he has a reputation! How dare she point out that anything he likes might have unpleasant consequences for anyone else! He realizes, though, that if Gigi is getting old enough for that sort of thing to be a problem, well, she's old enough, and he loves her. So he offers to make her his next mistress, and
Grandmama is thrilled, as is the aunt. But not Gigi, and she explains quite logically and coherently why she doesn't want to be a mistress, particularly one in the public eye. Why can't they go on as they have? Well, he says he loves her, to which she breaks out in tears because how can he force a woman he thinks he loves into that kind of life? At which point he storms out, because how dare she say stuff like that? How dare she cheapen a deep emotion by pointing out the reality of what it means for her? And initially, Grandmama is on Gaston's side. (Gigi gets called backwards because she's not focused on love and men.)
Anyway, Gigi relents (we're both miserable this way, and I'd rather be miserable alone together). They go out on a public date, Uncle Honore says something crass about her, and Gaston gets mad. And then he notices that Gigi has been very well instructed by her aunt, she knows exactly what the mistress of Gaston should be like. She's just like all the other women he knows. He realizes that she was right all along about what being his mistress would do to her, and decides to marry her instead, the end.
But the entire movie, everyone except Gigi does everything in their power to cater to Gaston and suck up to him, such that he has no clue what life is like for other people or the consequences his actions have on them, and everybody thinks that is absolutely 100% the way it should be.
I still love the music and the costumes and such (though, wow, Thank Heaven for Little Girls is way creepier than I realized as a child), and Gigi the character is fun to watch, but wow do I wanna drop-kick everyone else in the movie. I would pay money for an AU in which Gaston told Honore "Look, I love you, but this is really screwed up, seeya" about five minutes into the film. Or, at least, "I'm not going to waste my time with this, I don't think toying with women and throwing away money like it's water is fun."
But watching it as an adult with a more critical eye, wow, is it ever a textbook example of the way privilege works to distort relationships.
It's set in turn-of-the-century Paris, and it's about a young extremely rich man named Gaston and a teen girl named Gigi, and their families. The young man's lecherous-but-cheerful uncle Honore is played by Maurice Chevalier. Honore's world is one of constant womanizing. He finds a girl/young woman he likes, he sets her up in a house and lavishes her with presents in exchange for sex until he tires of her or she cheats on him, at which point the girl is out (and now has no chance of getting married or much opportunities for gainful employment, so she's pretty much trapped into being a courtesan for the rest of her life whether or not that's what she wants). Life for Honore is pretty much an endless party with everything set up to go his way. Despite the fact that Gaston often and repeatedly says he's bored by/doesn't like that sort of lifestyle, Honore pushes him into it for the honor of men everywhere and as his patriotic duty to France. The escapades of Honore and Gaston include at least one cast-off woman attempting unsuccessfully to commit suicide, which is treated almost as a joke--what did she expect, after all?
Meanwhile, Gaston has one place he actually enjoys being. It's a small apartment occupied by a middle-aged woman (a former courtesan herself played by Hermione Gingold) and her granddaughter Gigi (played by Leslie Caron). Gigi is a teenager still in school, who receives regular lessons from her great-aunt (who was a far more succesful courtesan than her grandmother) about all the necessary social graces to capture a man's attention. How to take tea and coffee, how to choose cigars, how to eat, how to tell real jewels from fake ones, how to sit and how to stand, etc. Despite this, Gigi is fresh and forthright and honest, and although sweet she tells things like they are. She and Gaston have lots of fun playing cards and other such games in their apartment while her Grandmama fawns over Gaston. Any time Gigi says something that might upset Gaston, she gets scolded for it, whether it's true or not--and that includes sticking up for herself when he gets mad at her.
Gigi gets older, and her great aunt says she's ready to be a courtesan despite the fact that she has no interest in being one, and who better than the rich dude who already knows and likes her? So next time Gaston comes by and wants to take Gigi out in a ride in his motor car, Grandmama says she can't--she'll be labeled if she does that. Gaston storms out--how dare she point out that he has a reputation! How dare she point out that anything he likes might have unpleasant consequences for anyone else! He realizes, though, that if Gigi is getting old enough for that sort of thing to be a problem, well, she's old enough, and he loves her. So he offers to make her his next mistress, and
Grandmama is thrilled, as is the aunt. But not Gigi, and she explains quite logically and coherently why she doesn't want to be a mistress, particularly one in the public eye. Why can't they go on as they have? Well, he says he loves her, to which she breaks out in tears because how can he force a woman he thinks he loves into that kind of life? At which point he storms out, because how dare she say stuff like that? How dare she cheapen a deep emotion by pointing out the reality of what it means for her? And initially, Grandmama is on Gaston's side. (Gigi gets called backwards because she's not focused on love and men.)
Anyway, Gigi relents (we're both miserable this way, and I'd rather be miserable alone together). They go out on a public date, Uncle Honore says something crass about her, and Gaston gets mad. And then he notices that Gigi has been very well instructed by her aunt, she knows exactly what the mistress of Gaston should be like. She's just like all the other women he knows. He realizes that she was right all along about what being his mistress would do to her, and decides to marry her instead, the end.
But the entire movie, everyone except Gigi does everything in their power to cater to Gaston and suck up to him, such that he has no clue what life is like for other people or the consequences his actions have on them, and everybody thinks that is absolutely 100% the way it should be.
I still love the music and the costumes and such (though, wow, Thank Heaven for Little Girls is way creepier than I realized as a child), and Gigi the character is fun to watch, but wow do I wanna drop-kick everyone else in the movie. I would pay money for an AU in which Gaston told Honore "Look, I love you, but this is really screwed up, seeya" about five minutes into the film. Or, at least, "I'm not going to waste my time with this, I don't think toying with women and throwing away money like it's water is fun."
no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 01:35 am (UTC)From:ETA: Gaston's Soliloquy and the lead-up to it are also rather creeptastic, for the record. I think I like the one from Beauty & The Beast better.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 01:58 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 05:13 am (UTC)From:Honore is the character that bugs me the most in it. He has no remorse for how his actions have affected others. Witness his performance in "I Remember It Well" where you can tell that all the women he's kept have become blurred together, indistinguishable from each other. The only person he loves is himself. He pushes Gaston to follow in his footsteps, allowing Honore to live vicariously through his nephew.
Gaston is honest with himself that he's unhappy following the path society expects of him, even if he doesn't break out of it until the end of the film. Marrying Gigi goes against the common practice of marrying in your social class. While it's never stated, I've always assumed that Gigi is illegitimate, and lower class.
Professional Mistress was a 'career' option for women in French society since the middle ages if not earlier. (King's mistresses got rich and could influence policy.) Smart ones made sure not to drink away their money, but bank it for their old age. Being a mistress could be safer than being a wife. Wives weren't able to leave abusive men, mistresses could.
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" has never been anything but creepy to me. It was made worse right after high school when a girlfriend of mine and I wound up changing a tire while the guy who was driving the group *leaned on the jacked-up car* while warbling the song. He didn't know how to change a tire.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 10:06 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 11:49 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 11:59 pm (UTC)From: