So a few weeks ago I had a bad day and a little breakdown about how I need to be a better person. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling — frantic loneliness, boredom, indecision, being hard on myself for stupid things (like snacks for dinner), etc., etc., etc. My then-boyfriend, who was at the receiving end of this little breakdown, is really into old musicals, and suggested we watch Singin’ in the Rain. We did, we laughed, it was nice.
I mistakenly thought that classic musicals might just be the key to happiness. Maybe I could watch something other than Amelie when I needed a little mood boost. I should know better than this — of course not every classic musical is going to make me forget a bad mood.
Anyway, I watched Gigi, the 1958 nine-Oscar-winning musical starring Leslie Caron. There were reasons for liking Gigi. In fact, I probably would have enjoyed it if I hadn’t had such high expectations for it. I liked the song “It’s a Bore,” and the way they musically depicted gossip. But there were many more reasons not to like Gigi (note: there are spoilers here):
- It opens with the kind of creepy, pedophilic number (really, in the context, even) “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.”
- One of those Little Girls for whom we should Thank Heaven is, of course, Gigi, who is probably 14 or 15. Her aunt and grandmother (both spinsters or widows or something) plot to polish her into a worldly young woman by giving her lessons in etiquette. So that she’ll marry well. Meaning: into money.
- The movie’s star male, Gaston, a sugar heir who is bored with everything, is dating Eva Gabor’s character, who cheats on him with her skating coach. Gaston breaks up with her….
- And she attempts suicide “the usual way, insufficient poison,” and it’s this big joke in the movie, with the pedophilic uncle so-and-so congratulating Gaston on “his first suicide” and toasting to “many more” (!!!!!)
- Gaston treats Gigi like a kid sister, until one night they get drunk on champagne, he loses to her at cards because she cheats, and as a result, she goes on vacation with him (and her grandmother).
- There is romantic interest.
- Gigi’s etiquette lessons become more intense (and they work! She knows just how to select a cigar for her man! Oh, the talent, the skill, the breeding!)
- He takes her out on the town, and hates her polishedness. So he marches her home, she cries all the way…
- And then he asks for her hand in marriage?
- And then she says yes?
- And then it ends?
- What?
Anyway. I won’t give up on musicals altogether. I’ll just lower my expectations and go from there.
7 Comments
July 8, 2008 at 7:15 pm
That is hilarious.
July 8, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I like musicals. Gigi is awesome, but that “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” really made me uncomfortable also. I suggest My Fair Lady!!!! If you want to really smile then you should dig deeper and watch Rocky Horror Picture Show or Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
July 9, 2008 at 6:16 am
OOOh, yeah Gigi is disturbing! When I need a musical pick me up I watch the first half of The Sound of Music. Just watch it to the wedding and avoid all of the WWII drama.
July 9, 2008 at 8:49 am
I think a lot of songs from that era are really disturbing. For example, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” is basically a light-hearted song about date rape:
So really I’d better scurry
(Beautiful, please don’t hurry)
well Maybe just a half a drink more
(Put some music on while I pour)
The neighbors might think
(Baby, it’s bad out there)
Say, what’s in this drink?
(No cabs to be had out there)
……
ought to say no, no, no, sir
(Mind if I move a little closer)
At least I’m gonna say that I tried
(What’s the sense in hurting my pride)
I really can’t stay
(Baby don’t hold out)
I really wonder if we live in a “worse” world than the 40s/50s or if we just actualize these things into our collective consciousness once they adopt commonplace words that imbue malevolence (i.e. “pedophilia” and “date rape”). Things seem a lot worse once you give them a name (not that I’m saying pedophilia and rape are good things!).
July 9, 2008 at 10:20 pm
No kidding, huh? Here’s my theory: We have an idealized view of the 40s and 50s, and we have it because depictions of that era (and I would venture to say much of the media produced at the time) have tended towards idyllic. Sure, there are dark exceptions, but for the most part, that was what was portrayed… Especially in the genre of musicals (Dancer in the Dark probably wouldn’t have been much of a hit.)
I wonder about the whole collective consciousness thing, too. There are things that have been going on for as long as we know, and then there are things that become part of our vocabulary — school shootings come to mind — and start happening at a greater frequency.
I think you’re onto something with the “naming” issue… Are school shootings really happening more often, or does giving it a name make us more likely to categorize an event as a “school shooting,” when it might have been a “tragedy” in the 1980s?
The OED says “pedophilia” was first used in 1906, but I get the sense it didn’t apply to adolescent girls and older men until later (c. 1950s), but rather to small children. Interestingly, Gigi came out in the same year Lolita was first published in the U.S. (three years after it had been published in French). “Date rape” as a written term showed up in 1975. “School shooting” has yet to make the OED pages as a distinct term, but has been on Wikipedia since June 2002, about eighteen months after Wikipedia began (I haven’t studied Wikipedia enough to know what that suggests, if anything, but I think the whole “first written instance of a term” thing is changing dramatically).
December 4, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Actually, there’s an extra layer of creepy to “Gigi” . . . She’s not being trained to find a wealthy husband, she’s being trained to be a well-kept mistress of a wealthy man.
And that’s the role that Gaston essentially choose her to fill near the end, but then he decides he doesn’t like it and drags her home to propose. His uncle faced the same choice with Gigi’s grandmother (as detailed in the song “I Remember It Well”), but he made the opposite decision.
Needless to say, I loathe the movie.
April 17, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I’m glad Jared pointed that out. I actually like the movie, but I admit the ending confused me the first time. But the second time, keeping the courtesan part in mind, it made much more sense.
The “thank heaven for little girls” thing is still creepy to me. I think that is a change in culture. I mean, strangers used to be able to talk to children, even when I was a kid.