| re: ''Gigi'': ''Overnight, there's been a ... change in you'' | |
| Posted by: | LegitOnce 10:41 am EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | ''Gigi'': ''Overnight, there's been a ... change in you'' - WaymanWong 02:24 pm EST 11/21/14 |
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| This surely makes no sense at all. The plot arc of Gigi is all about how the title character is a child at the beginning of the story and a woman at the end, and the "discovery" is such a shock to everyone involved: Alicia, Mamita, and especially Gaston. The richness of the joke is that Gigi, a child, is being groomed for a career as a courtesan. She knows, sort of, that this is her future, but Alicia's lessons make about as much practical sense to her as studying algebra does to the average 13 year old girl today: it's something you do because you get in trouble if you don't. Gigi regards being a courtesan the way a 12 year old today would regard being, say, an investment banker: "well, you wear a suit, and you go to an office downtown, and you talk on the phone a lot..." If Gigi is 15 (as in Colette) then it is perfectly reasonable that older adults (the two elderly aunts and the 30-something Gaston) would regard her as a little girl, and then, when you get the big reveal of her with her hair up and the long dress, the audience gets to share their shock at seeing Gigi as an adult. If, on the other hand, Gigi is explicitly 18 (an age at which many Parisian wives would have been working on their second pregnancy), then everyone involved is an idiot. Coming from an 18 year old, Gigi's line To 'take care of me beautifully' means I shall go away with you, and that I shall sleep in your bed" sounds either petulant or obtuse; from a 15 year old, on the other hand, it is sweetly sad, her first inkling of what "the life" is going to involve. The "Little Girls" song is absolutely keyed to that theme, i.e., that it seems like a girl is a child one day and a woman the next. Gaston was falling in love with Gigi without knowing he was falling in love, because, so far as he knew, she was a child, and one does not fall in love with a child. So alien were these feelings to him that he didn't even feel guilt about them: all he knew was that he was disturbed and uneasy around Gigi, and he couldn't figure out why. Gigi is a variation on the classic Cinderella story, and in that myth the primary focus is not on the ball or the eventual marriage to the Prince, but rather on how these things are the rewards of virtue. Gigi gets Gaston as a husband because she essentially kind and modest. When she puts on the courtesan act, Gaston is ashamed at how she has chosen to "degrade" herself and his own basic sense of gallantry requires him to treat her with respect. All of this is lost if Gigi is too old, or if a revised book robs her of her innocence. | |
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| The commodification of females in GIGI | |
| Posted by: | lordofspeech 10:07 am EST 11/23/14 |
| In reply to: | re: ''Gigi'': ''Overnight, there's been a ... change in you'' - LegitOnce 10:41 am EST 11/22/14 |
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| The "Gigi" film's storyline is fraught with political incorrectness and the glamorization of a system which, while granting women a certain autonomy over their finances, cedes ultimate authority to the wealthy males in society. There's a lot to be dealt with in this story if one wishes to make it palatable to a Broadway kid-oriented market. I think Honore's sophisticated (and beautiful) appreciation of the feminine is the least of their worries. SPOILER It's a period piece, and it has the saving grace that Gigi herself becomes a wife-consort rather than a mistress-courtesan, but its context is all about the marketing of females as sex-slaves and the privilege of monied males as predators. I'm not opposed to the story, and I enjoy the film for its ability to embrace this world without American-Puritan judgement, but trying to clean things up might backfire. Will it really seem nicer to hear Gigi's caretakers extol her virtues in "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" while they're grooming her for "the life"? A very slippery slope. | |
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| re: The commodification of females in GIGI | |
| Posted by: | singleticket 01:42 pm EST 11/23/14 |
| In reply to: | The commodification of females in GIGI - lordofspeech 10:07 am EST 11/23/14 |
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| its context is all about the marketing of females as sex-slaves and the privilege of monied males as predators But Gaston is also being marketed and commodified. He's being groomed to become a future Honoré. And it's a privilege he rejects. | |
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| Let's face it ... | |
| Posted by: | Alcindoro 11:54 am EST 11/23/14 |
| In reply to: | The commodification of females in GIGI - lordofspeech 10:07 am EST 11/23/14 |
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| ... the real reasons someone is trying to revisal GIGI for Broadway is that it's a pre-sold name commodity that happens to have a brilliant score. (That and few are coming up with any better ideas.) The smart if now-troublesome screenplay was the springboard for those brilliant songs, and warping it into a romance palatable to today's audiences seems blatantly meretricious. Ms. Thomas sounds like a smart person, but it's pretty clear that she's basically in this for the potential revenue. I wish everyone well on this project and maybe they can sell this thing to a target audience that doesn't tend to think much about what they're seeing, but it sounds like a bad idea to me. GIGI with a thick pre-fab corn-syrup veneer. I'd be far more interested in a responsible treatment of Collette's original, even without Lerner and Loewe. | |
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| re: ''Gigi'': ''Overnight, there's been a ... change in you'' | |
| Posted by: | WaymanWong 12:32 am EST 11/23/14 |
| In reply to: | re: ''Gigi'': ''Overnight, there's been a ... change in you'' - LegitOnce 10:41 am EST 11/22/14 |
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| Very well-stated, LegitOnce. If you change Gigi's age of 15 to 18, and you change the thirtysomething Gaston to the same age as Gigi, and you make them ''childhood friends,'' is this really Colette's ''Gigi'' anymore? Colette wrote about a naive 15-year-old being groomed to be a courtesan for older men (and Gaston's reaction to that). Heidi Thomas says: ''We make it very clear that she is 18, because we want a modern audience to be comfortable with this.'' If you want Vanessa Hudgens to play a girl who's just as innocent as her beau, why not adapt ''High School Musical''? | |
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| A superior post; many thanks. n/m | |
| Posted by: | reed23 06:53 pm EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: ''Gigi'': ''Overnight, there's been a ... change in you'' - LegitOnce 10:41 am EST 11/22/14 |
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| Well said (nm) | |
| Posted by: | AlanScott 05:31 pm EST 11/22/14 |
| In reply to: | re: ''Gigi'': ''Overnight, there's been a ... change in you'' - LegitOnce 10:41 am EST 11/22/14 |
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| nm | |
| reply to this message | reply to first message | |
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