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Cleaning out my "ready to post" folder, I wrote this ages ago but I can see it being useful to link to at some point.
I just saw Pretty Woman for the first time. MY GOD SO CREEPY. It's one long male power fantasy of having enough money to make a pretty, sweet natured lower class girl fall in love with you, and do and be whatever you want without once having to make a commitment or say "I love you" (seriously, never. Not even at the end). Because you see she's a sex worker, so her standards are so low that not being a complete douchebag all the time is more than she would ever expect! You don't need to show her respect or care about her feelings, as long as you give her enough gifts and say the odd nice thing from time to time she will be blissfully happy.
I and Cam agreed that the worst scene is the one four minutes in to this video: She's complaining that he told one of his workmates that she was a sex worker, and when she refuses to stop being angry he says "Vivian! I'm speaking to you, come back here! I hate to point out the obvious but you are in fact a hooker!…I refuse to spend the next three days arguing with you, I said I was sorry, I meant it, that's the end of it," as if he owns her, and when she says she wishes she'd never met him says "As if you had so many more appealing options". And you know how he persuades her to come back? By saying that he didn't like watching her talk to another guy: she's gone from employee to possession YAY.
I think the reason people like this film is that despite his character being an irredeemable arse, Richard Gere comes across as having the soul of a teddy bear, and if you ignore the plot and dialogue he and Julia Roberts come across as two people who are deeply in love and make each other happy. Alas, if you pay attention to what's actually happening…
I did like Julia Robert's character Vivian, as did pretty much every other character in the film, and I would ship her more happily with pretty much any of them (especially her fellow sex worker friend) I would only ship Richard Gere's character with Jason Alexander's character, his lawyer friend, and mostly I'd ship both of them in a crate to the bottom of the sea.
One of the main issues is there's no distinction made between when she's on the clock and off the clock with him, it's implied she'll be just as sexy and pliable and cheerfully supportive ALL THE TIME when she's not being paid. Also it's stated several times that's she's not like other street walkers, she basically has a higher class soul that isn't jaded, appreciates opera etc. (The class issues, ack. Oh and the race issues too. This film has issues is what I'm saying)
I think you could have a way more interesting film with roughly the same characters and premise: where an emotionally broken business man hires a sex worker to pretend to be his girlfriend to impress a client since real relationships take too much effort and the two of them learn to get past their distrust of others to connect with each other. But you would need (a)her to be as prickly as him and (b) for them to NEVER HAVE SEX while she is working for him, and for her to be off the clock or at least not obliged to be affectionate/sexy when they're not in public. That way they could actually get to know each other as themselves. It would probably still be problematic, but not as unbearably creepy.
I just saw Pretty Woman for the first time. MY GOD SO CREEPY. It's one long male power fantasy of having enough money to make a pretty, sweet natured lower class girl fall in love with you, and do and be whatever you want without once having to make a commitment or say "I love you" (seriously, never. Not even at the end). Because you see she's a sex worker, so her standards are so low that not being a complete douchebag all the time is more than she would ever expect! You don't need to show her respect or care about her feelings, as long as you give her enough gifts and say the odd nice thing from time to time she will be blissfully happy.
I and Cam agreed that the worst scene is the one four minutes in to this video: She's complaining that he told one of his workmates that she was a sex worker, and when she refuses to stop being angry he says "Vivian! I'm speaking to you, come back here! I hate to point out the obvious but you are in fact a hooker!…I refuse to spend the next three days arguing with you, I said I was sorry, I meant it, that's the end of it," as if he owns her, and when she says she wishes she'd never met him says "As if you had so many more appealing options". And you know how he persuades her to come back? By saying that he didn't like watching her talk to another guy: she's gone from employee to possession YAY.
I think the reason people like this film is that despite his character being an irredeemable arse, Richard Gere comes across as having the soul of a teddy bear, and if you ignore the plot and dialogue he and Julia Roberts come across as two people who are deeply in love and make each other happy. Alas, if you pay attention to what's actually happening…
I did like Julia Robert's character Vivian, as did pretty much every other character in the film, and I would ship her more happily with pretty much any of them (especially her fellow sex worker friend) I would only ship Richard Gere's character with Jason Alexander's character, his lawyer friend, and mostly I'd ship both of them in a crate to the bottom of the sea.
One of the main issues is there's no distinction made between when she's on the clock and off the clock with him, it's implied she'll be just as sexy and pliable and cheerfully supportive ALL THE TIME when she's not being paid. Also it's stated several times that's she's not like other street walkers, she basically has a higher class soul that isn't jaded, appreciates opera etc. (The class issues, ack. Oh and the race issues too. This film has issues is what I'm saying)
I think you could have a way more interesting film with roughly the same characters and premise: where an emotionally broken business man hires a sex worker to pretend to be his girlfriend to impress a client since real relationships take too much effort and the two of them learn to get past their distrust of others to connect with each other. But you would need (a)her to be as prickly as him and (b) for them to NEVER HAVE SEX while she is working for him, and for her to be off the clock or at least not obliged to be affectionate/sexy when they're not in public. That way they could actually get to know each other as themselves. It would probably still be problematic, but not as unbearably creepy.