I've decided to take on a new project and watch every movie that ever won the Academy Award for Best Picture. There are 90, and after a tally, I've seen 28 already. That leaves 62 unseen movies. So today I begin with Gigi, the Best Picture of 1958. IMDB's description is: "Weary of the conventions of Parisian society, a rich playboy and a youthful courtesan-in-training enjoy a platonic friendship, but it may not stay platonic for long." Starring Leslie Carron and Louis Jourdan.
WELL. Let me tell you something. I have no idea how I feel about this movie. Now granted, it was made in 1958 so in the intervening 60 years our ideas about courtship and womanhood etc are a lot different. But I don't think the IMDB description is entirely accurate. Gigi is a musical-and opens with a song not at all condescendingly titled "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" where one of the lyrics is "without them what would little boys do." Then he(this weird old dude) talks about people who won't get married and people who don't get married(the difference being that men won't because they don't want to but women don't because they want to but aren't desirable/rich/etc. enough? But if they can't have good jobs and inherit money that's probably true since this movie is set in 1900).
AND YET! I was thoroughly enjoying this movie for the first 90% of it. Even the fact that the main love interest of Gigi was named Gaston! I wonder if Disney named Gaston after him in Beauty and the Beast? Well in any case- I found the character of Gigi in the beginning to be charming-just as Gaston does. She's me! Runs around and plops into chairs and steals sips of champagne while cheating at cards! Except I'm 28, so I don't have to steal sips of champagne. Which brings me to my first issue with this movie which is, HOW OLD IS EVERYONE!? Gigi seems to be about 16/17, and Gaston maybe like late 20s/early 30s? So. That's kind of gross, but again the times! They were a-different(I'm pretty sure that's the lyric). My other issue-more of a nitpick, is how does Gaston know this family? It seems weird if he's so rich that he hangs out with this group of poor misfit women? Just me?
But then we get to the real crux of the movie, which is that after they all go on some beach holiday, they come back and the grandmother is like OMG! Maybe they should get married??? But then! UGH. He just decides he wants Gigi as his live in mistress, but like, she would live in a different house? It seems super gross, and I know it was a thing, but if they got along so well, AND HE LOVES HER, and also he is a family friend, wouldn't the decent thing be to either marry her or forget the whole thing? But no! In fact her grandmother and great aunt are like! Yay! This is exactly what we wanted for you! Go be this man's mistress! But he's not married, so you're really just a girlfriend he won't marry!? I don't know. It's all very confusing to me. AND GIGI IS LIKE, YO THIS IS WACK, NO THANKS. Because OBVIOUSLY! And then!? She changes her mind!?
So they go out on a date, and everyone in Paris is gross and gossipy, but Gigi is just like leaning into it at this point. Gaston seems super uncomfortable, and this is the part where a 1958 musical diverges from a 2018 movie. Because in 2018, I'm thinking to myself, oh no. He's bored of her already just like he got bored of all his other girlfriends. So he drags her out of the party and back to her house and it's A Scandal. And then 2 minutes later he comes back to propose and they live happily ever after? I had whiplash you guys. I'm not necessarily upset that things ended happily, just that it seemed like he should've done that to begin with. Maybe they're trying to show that he like grew as a person, and became better. But it seems like he became better and grew against his own wishes so that's super weird. I mean I get that he's a rich playboy and he doesn't HAVE to marry her, but still. If we are supposed to root for them to be together he should be a good person. On purpose. So I guess my thoughts are, that this world is not good enough for the Gigi's in it, and why did society/her grandmother and aunt feel the need to remove Gigi's joie de vivre and personality just so she could get a man who was kind of gross? #savegigi
As an aside I don't feel it necessary to talk that much about the actual music in this movie because it wasn't very good.
This movie is a time capsule about how not to treat young girls. AND I ALMOST FORGOT? That Gaston went out with a girl and when they broke up she tried to COMMIT SUICIDE and everyone was all LOL about it!!!!!!!???? I think I blocked it out because it was weird as hell and I don't know what even to say about it.
WELL. Let me tell you something. I have no idea how I feel about this movie. Now granted, it was made in 1958 so in the intervening 60 years our ideas about courtship and womanhood etc are a lot different. But I don't think the IMDB description is entirely accurate. Gigi is a musical-and opens with a song not at all condescendingly titled "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" where one of the lyrics is "without them what would little boys do." Then he(this weird old dude) talks about people who won't get married and people who don't get married(the difference being that men won't because they don't want to but women don't because they want to but aren't desirable/rich/etc. enough? But if they can't have good jobs and inherit money that's probably true since this movie is set in 1900).
AND YET! I was thoroughly enjoying this movie for the first 90% of it. Even the fact that the main love interest of Gigi was named Gaston! I wonder if Disney named Gaston after him in Beauty and the Beast? Well in any case- I found the character of Gigi in the beginning to be charming-just as Gaston does. She's me! Runs around and plops into chairs and steals sips of champagne while cheating at cards! Except I'm 28, so I don't have to steal sips of champagne. Which brings me to my first issue with this movie which is, HOW OLD IS EVERYONE!? Gigi seems to be about 16/17, and Gaston maybe like late 20s/early 30s? So. That's kind of gross, but again the times! They were a-different(I'm pretty sure that's the lyric). My other issue-more of a nitpick, is how does Gaston know this family? It seems weird if he's so rich that he hangs out with this group of poor misfit women? Just me?
But then we get to the real crux of the movie, which is that after they all go on some beach holiday, they come back and the grandmother is like OMG! Maybe they should get married??? But then! UGH. He just decides he wants Gigi as his live in mistress, but like, she would live in a different house? It seems super gross, and I know it was a thing, but if they got along so well, AND HE LOVES HER, and also he is a family friend, wouldn't the decent thing be to either marry her or forget the whole thing? But no! In fact her grandmother and great aunt are like! Yay! This is exactly what we wanted for you! Go be this man's mistress! But he's not married, so you're really just a girlfriend he won't marry!? I don't know. It's all very confusing to me. AND GIGI IS LIKE, YO THIS IS WACK, NO THANKS. Because OBVIOUSLY! And then!? She changes her mind!?
So they go out on a date, and everyone in Paris is gross and gossipy, but Gigi is just like leaning into it at this point. Gaston seems super uncomfortable, and this is the part where a 1958 musical diverges from a 2018 movie. Because in 2018, I'm thinking to myself, oh no. He's bored of her already just like he got bored of all his other girlfriends. So he drags her out of the party and back to her house and it's A Scandal. And then 2 minutes later he comes back to propose and they live happily ever after? I had whiplash you guys. I'm not necessarily upset that things ended happily, just that it seemed like he should've done that to begin with. Maybe they're trying to show that he like grew as a person, and became better. But it seems like he became better and grew against his own wishes so that's super weird. I mean I get that he's a rich playboy and he doesn't HAVE to marry her, but still. If we are supposed to root for them to be together he should be a good person. On purpose. So I guess my thoughts are, that this world is not good enough for the Gigi's in it, and why did society/her grandmother and aunt feel the need to remove Gigi's joie de vivre and personality just so she could get a man who was kind of gross? #savegigi
This movie is a time capsule about how not to treat young girls. AND I ALMOST FORGOT? That Gaston went out with a girl and when they broke up she tried to COMMIT SUICIDE and everyone was all LOL about it!!!!!!!???? I think I blocked it out because it was weird as hell and I don't know what even to say about it.
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