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re: The song is only creepy if you choose to see it that way

Posted by: lordofspeech 11:45 pm EST 11/23/14
In reply to: re: The song is only creepy if you choose to see it that way - LegitOnce 08:15 pm EST 11/23/14

Point well taken. Gigi was not being groomed for Gaston, specifically. But was she going to eventually be groomed for the profession? No? I don't know.


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re: The song is only creepy if you choose to see it that way

Posted by: LegitOnce 12:52 am EST 11/24/14
In reply to: re: The song is only creepy if you choose to see it that way - lordofspeech 11:45 pm EST 11/23/14

I think it's pretty clear that Gigi is being prepared to enter the "family profession," though, ironically (as has been pointed out elsewhere) she is essentially receiving the same sort of training a genteel young woman of marriageable age would: how to serve coffee, how to enter a room, how to eat ortolans and so forth. (Obviously the ortolans scene is meant to be comic, but it's comedy based on truth; a married woman in society would be expected to have exquisite manners.)

The training Aunt Alicia provides is essentially what separates a courtesan from a prostitute, which is to say the difference between being comfortably set for life and dying in poverty. (Mamita, being inclined to sentimentality, was not as good at the game as the level-headed Alicia, and that is consistent with the conventional wisdom of the 19th century that a truly successful courtesan must have a cold and absolutely practical heart.

The second act (of the musical) plot turn, when Alicia decides that they had better strike while the iron is hot and get Gigi ready for Gaston, implies that before that point Alicia and Mamita didn't expect Gigi to "come out" for a while yet. This is all the more reason that Gigi needs to be played as a very young girl, the 15 1/2 Colette specifies or else her age tactfully not mentioned as in the MGM movie.


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re: The song is only creepy if you choose to see it that way

Posted by: Greg_M 04:04 pm EST 11/24/14
In reply to: re: The song is only creepy if you choose to see it that way - LegitOnce 12:52 am EST 11/24/14

There is a big difference between Gigi and a prostitute.

A prostitute doesn't get taken out "on the town" and engage in a long term relationship with "one" man.

The only difference between Gigi and a wife is a marriage certificate. A prostitute has multiple partners in one night and receives cash not gifts and is not to be seen with you in public


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