This past weekend my mom and I had the whole house to ourselves, and we thought that it would be fun to do a movie night. We sat down with ramen and some face masks and  put on My Fair Lady. Neither of us had seen the movie in over 10 years but we had fond memories surrounding it. But as we made our way through the film, we were surprised at how little we enjoyed watching it.

For people who have not watched the movie I will give a brief plot summary before I go into some of my reactions. My Fair Lady was released in 1964 and was based off of a very popular Broadway musical. Staring big names like Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, the story centered on a professor using his skills to transform a poor woman into a lady. Eliza Doolittle, played by Hepburn is a poor woman who has a very thick accent and makes her living selling flowers. Henry Higgins is a professor of Linguistics and was brought up in a wealthy family. The story begins with Higgins meeting Eliza and offhandedly telling a friend of his (Colonel Pickering) that he was so accomplished of a linguist that he could  take a woman like Eliza and pass her off as a high class lady. Because she is not satisfied with her life, Eliza convinces Higgins to make good on his word and teach her to talk like a lady. A good deal of the movie is then spent showing Eliza struggling to relearn how to speak while Higgins complains and laments how hard he’s working to help her. Eliza begins to speak more clearly and ignoring one not-so-successful outing, she is prepared to make her societal debut at the embassy ball. There she makes a huge splash, and everyone is immediately infatuated by her. Higgins finds the whole evening a success and along with his friends and staff, he sings his own praises for successfully transforming Eliza. Meanwhile, everyone ignores Eliza’s part in the whole ordeal and she runs away. When Higgins goes to fetch her back, she tells him that she is not coming back to live with him, and he leaves in a huff. The movie then closes with him almost sorrowfully listening to old recordings of Eliza as she walks back into his study and the credits begin to play.

So now that there’s a little background, we can get to the heart of what made me so upset about the movie. As a preface, I do understand that the movie was released in 1964 and that the play that it was based on was released in the mid 50’s. There was a different idea of how men were supposed to display their masculinity and that was clearly reflected in how men were portrayed in movies. But that is does not excuse the movie from criticism. In addition, the movie is still hailed as a classic that many people still watch and enjoy today. But there are so many toxic ideas and lessons that I think should be explored more.

First of all, I’d like to begin with a comparison between some of the male characters in the film. There are three main male characters in the movie: Professor Higgins, Freddy Eynsford-Hill, and Colonel Pickering. I want to focus on the first two and compare Higgins and Freddy and the way that they are characterized in the movie. Higgins through the entire film is a rude, narcissistic, asshole. He is so incredibly full of himself and sees everyone as below him. Freddy on the other hand is an overly-eager young man who falls for Eliza as soon as he meets her. Freddy endlessly pursues her and sings about how absolutely in love with her he is. Both of these characters are treated so differently from each other by the other characters in the movie. Higgins garners so much sympathy and affection from his friends and staff and he is constantly told that he is a generous man. Freddy on the other hand is constantly dismissed. His proclamations of love are not taken seriously and for the most part he is largely ignored. Now he may be ignored as a character in part because he does not have the money and status that Higgins does, but he also is a very open and emotionally vulnerable character. Higgins though, embodies more clearly the “ideal man”. He never shows any doubt or fear and the only emotion that he seems capable of portraying is anger and frustration. There was only a couple of moments in the film where he shows “weakness” and he immediately hides that by drinking or hiding his face. The contrast between these characters seems to be teaching that to be a man, one should be stoic or tough like Higgins and not put yourself in a position where you show your affections towards others.

My other issue is with the relationship between Eliza and Higgins. They begin the story as enemies forced together into a symbiotic relationship. Eliza was in it only to improve her job prospects while Higgins just wanted to prove his linguistic genius. Through the film Eliza is written like a typical “strong female lead” and she seems to hold her own against Higgins. And when she sees how he seems to be incapable of showing her even the smallest amount of kindness, she runs off to live without him. After he fails to win her back, he sings on and on about how upset he is that she’s gone and he wishes for her life to be hard and awful without him. This is the moment in the film where I expected him to change his ways or apologize for his behavior. Instead, he simply listens to old recordings of her and looks almost sad. But as he is in the middle of his pouting and on the same day that she told him that she is not going back with him, Eliza steps back into his life. He does nothing to win back her affections because it is not his responsibility. He is too proud and manly to stoop so low. It is on Eliza to come crawling back to him.

All in all, I give the movie a 4/10. The songs are catchy, but the characters are not nearly likeable enough to watch for 3 hours.