I was always under the impression that feeling dirty, awkward and uncomfortable while watching a movie was reserved for "Two Girls, One Cup." Then I watched "My Fair Lady."
I'm not entirely incapable of enjoying a musical, "Yankee Doodle Dandy" was great, even the film version of "Phantom of the Opera" was pretty good despite the fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber's crimes against the stage equate to Manuel Noriega's crimes against humanity. However, it doesn't bode well for a musical or any other kind of movie when I am constantly reading the chapter list to make sure we are getting closer to the end.
For those of you who don't know the premise, the film is based on the play "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw. An arrogant professor/phoneticist named Henry Higgins meets an unrefined cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle and makes a bet with his friend that he can teach her to be ladylike and eventually be able to pass her off as a noble. At first it seems like it is going to be a lighthearted story with a sprinkling of satire aimed at classism. However, almost immediately things take a turn for the worse.
When it is determined the Eliza will be living with Professor Higgins for the 6 month duration of the project while he changes her style, mannerisms and language. Almost immediately this premise lends itself to a skeevy element of prostitution. This impression is only encouraged by Eliza's protests that this arrangement will compromise her virtue, and exacerbated even further when her father attempts to "come to her rescue" and is simply paid off by Higgins to leave them alone. From here, the woman-hating Higgins proceeds to live out some kind of perverse role-playing-like fantasy by dressing Eliza up in all sorts of opulent outfits and assigning handlers to her to ensure she is dressed, groomed and even bathed to his standards.
Throughout the film, Higgins projects a barbaric, misogynistic attitude towards women; treating Eliza as property, breaking into an uncomfortably flirtatious number with his ass-ociate Col. Pickering asking why women can't be more like him and never attempting to relieve Eliza's fears that he is going to physically harm her. In fact he seems to revel in her paranoia and only gets more glee from constantly verbally berating her. This uncomfortable relationship is only enhanced by the significant age difference between Higgins and Eliza.
"Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?" (Henry Higgins, "My Fair Lady")
The only scene where Higgins seems like he may be able to redeem himself comes after a horrified Eliza finds out she was merely the subject of a wager and angrily confronts him about it. He implies that all he ever wanted was for her to stand up to him and gain some self-confidence. However this hope of good character is immediately dashed when he expresses shock at her "lack of gratitude." He also admits envy to the point of wishing for a pathetic, impoverished existence when Eliza begins a relationship with one of the upper-classmen she meets at a wealthy race track.
While it is only HEAVILY implied and hinted at through songs, particularly "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" the concept of Eliza and Higgins being love interests is nothing short of creepy. This creepiness is only enhanced by the fact that, given the attitude he has expressed towards women and the appallingly sexist remarks he makes towards her, Eliza would seemingly submit to a life of being a possession is heartbreaking.
Even the title alone, "My Fair Lady" displays this backwards principle of male ownership. Especially given the fact that the original production was going to be called "Lady Eliza" but Rex Harrison, who secured the role of Higgins both in the stage musical and the subsequent film and apparently took the part to heart, refused to be the male lead in a production with a female title character.
Despite the attention that has been lavished on Audrey Hepburn for her portrayal of Eliza Doolittle, I feel this film was largely unfair to her. By overdubbing her vocals without her knowledge, the impression someone gets from watching it was that she was a terrible singer and an even worse lip-syncer. However, I guess this doesn't surprise me since berating and degrading women seems to be the focal point of this film.
"My Fair Lady" is not without it's positive aspects. The lavish production and extravagant budget it was given was an amazing credit to the level of confidence a movie studio was willing to give an adapted stage musical, something that had only previously been seen with James Whale's "Show Boat." Also, the freezing of the background characters while those in the foreground become the center of attention was a brilliant directorial tool which makes the movie feel like a more theatrical experience than a cinematic, as this is what the characters would be doing when the curtain is lifted and lowered. Also, the one truly great song in the production "I Could Have Danced All Night" gets plenty of exposure as it appears in reprise form several times throughout the film.
In the end though, it is simply too much to demand of an audience to endure three hours of this rubbish. When my wife and I first began this project we agreed that while we may see some movies that were not our cup of tea, we still wouldn't see anything that could be called a "bad" movie. After watching "My Fair Lady" I may have to re-evaluate that claim.
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