On my mission to see
all the movies I should, I got around to at last watch My Fair Lady. I think it
might be the first Audrey Hepburn film I’ve seen (yes, I’m ashamed of myself).
It’s a witty movie
with lovely score and great performances. Especially Rex Harrison shines as
Henry Higgins, being the kind of charismatic character you just love to hate. I
really enjoyed myself curled up in my covers, listening to the songs and getting
to know the colourful characters. So, how
did it suck if you liked it so much?
My Fair Lady sucks
because it wins it all in so many ways and then it shoots its own leg and
stumbles down. Yes, I’m talking about the ending.
Eliza Doolittle is
absolutely brilliant character. I was already signed up for faithfully celebrating annual Eliza Doolittle Day. The growth to independence from Higgins’ influence was
what really dragged me toward the movie. And then the end scene breaks my
heart. After all the struggle she comes back to him and it makes no sense.
To have some
explanation, one could argue that she had now won the battle and they both knew
it – so she didn’t have to be without him if she didn’t want to. She could do so. He couldn’t, she’s in
power. But the way this version of Eliza looks at poor professor Higgins… It’s
a tender look. And gosh, if he would’ve learned anything at all he should’ve
worked on what to say to her. After all the power she has gained back it doesn’t
feel good enough reason.
Other commentators
online were saying that she just had to marry someone as the social structures
demanded that and Higgins’ was the only choice. Well, she had Freddy, but
really he’s just a useless side character, she couldn’t possibly care for him –
and he didn’t have money anyway. Why everyone tends to forget Freddy was the
one character who was attracted to her for who
she was right from the beginning? After the talk Eliza gave him (“Show Me”),
it seems that he was there for her. That was just what she dreamed of in the beginning
- that, and chocolate, and we could assume that somebody being there for her
for a change would be something she needed a tad more. Just think about her
father. Anyway, if she didn’t want to
marry Freddy she could’ve married somebody else. It was proven that she was
popular – and after all the attention at the embassy ball she sure looked good
in the eyes of (rich) suitors.
Somehow Higgins still
has his fans. Direct quote from a YouTube comment favouring Eliza/Higgins: “Higgins is a little sexist and
over the top with his personality”. Little sexist? Really, it’s 2016 and men
are still so easy to forgive. There was no proof of him changing his habits –
and without that there was absolutely no reason for her return. Is it really
just me who doesn’t think that love hurting is not a romantic idea? When love
hurts you know it’s your time to leave.
My Fair Lady – the musical – is based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, first performed in
1913. He did not write the two ending up together and he was repeatedly
crossed when the impossibility of this pairing was ignored. To please the
audience with a ‘happy ending’, the actor of Higgins gave Eliza flowers. "My ending makes money; you
ought to be grateful.” Shaw wasn’t grateful. For the 1938 movie version of the
play he offered a compromised tender farewell between the two and then a scene
from Eliza’s and Freddy’s flower shop. Didn’t go as planned; in that movie too
Eliza comes back like in My Fair Lady, joking about her first visit.
From Eliza’s point of view the ending doesn’t feel natural. It’s clear that the audience is keen
to see Higgins as the hero but as the story goes on, I think it’s inevitable to
see that Eliza is the real hero here – and I believe it was supposed to be so. If
George Bernard Shaw could write a strong female character who chooses her own
way and says no to a man a hundred years ago, you’d think that it could be seen so over romantic clichés decades later - and that the present day
viewers could do that too. Bring down the patriarchy or what?
