My Fair Lady

[osprey_archer]

Is anti-shipping a thing? Rachel and I watched My Fair Lady yesterday and I hate the pairing Henry Higgins/Eliza Doolittle to the depths of my heart. He's SUCH A JERK to her for the entire movie! He can't speak without insulting her! She shows up at his door for speaking lessons, and he's like "She's so deliciously low. We should teach her to be a lady because right now the filthy little baggage is an embarrassment to the English language."

He excuses himself by saying that he treats everyone that way, but no, he really doesn't. He never calls anyone else dirty, low, a baggage or a hussy, or completely ignores and overrides their feelings in everything. The scene where Higgins' servants basically tear Eliza's clothes off to put her into the bathtub is revolting.

And he's forever taking the accolades for her accomplishments. All right, yes, he is her teacher and he is partly responsible that she learns to act like a lady: but he's utterly overstating his brilliance when he snaps at Eliza, "You won my bet? You presumptuous insect, I won it."

No, you ass! If Eliza hadn't been an apt pupil, you would have lost! He's lucky that she wouldn't imagine messing up just to spite him, because he surely would have deserved it if she told everyone at the ball that 'Enry 'Iggins trained 'er up as a lady for a joke. If she'd done it right, I expect everyone would have been laughing at him rather than her. I daresay most of them have been waiting and yearning for years to make him suffer.

And he's completely delusional about his own behavior! "You certainly don't pretend that I have treated you badly?" he demands of Eliza after the ball, when he's taken credit for her success and utterly ignored her. And of course she says no, because she's been a flower girl all her life and never treated well by anyone, so she thinks his treatment is fine.

But he damn well did treat her badly! He's an emotionally abusive jackass! I am entirely on side with his mother, who says "Bravo, Eliza," when Eliza finally tells him off.

And then! And then! He takes credit for the fact that she found her spine again. "By George, I really did it, I did it, I did it! I said I'd make a woman and indeed, I did. I knew that I could do it, I knew it, I knew it! I said I'd make a woman and succeed, I did!"

DIE IN A FIRE, HENRY HIGGINS. She had plenty of spirit before she met him. The first scene basically involves her pitching a fit to make sure her rights are respected. He nearly destroys it - and now he's taking credit for it!

In the last scene Eliza shows up at Higgens' house, and we're meant to assume that their relationship is going to resume its former courses. He's all, "Where the devil are my slippers?" and pulls his hat down over his face, because he expects her to serve him and wants to show he doesn't care a bit (and isn't at all surprised) that she's returned.

I like to imagine that, in fact, Eliza showed up to kill him. I hope she rams his bloody slipper down his throat until he suffocates.

Comments

[goldjadeocean.livejournal.com]

The original playwright's endnote to the play was basically, "LOL fooled you, she marries Freddy instead."

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Anti-shipping is TOTALLY a thing, and yeah, Henry is the worst. I may actually anti-ship Henry/Eliza harder than I anti-ship Erik/Christine at this point.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think Erik still has the Worst Boyfriend Ever edge, because Henry (horrid though he is) never kills anyone or ties up Eliza and threatens to kill Freddy if she doesn't agree to stay in Henry's dank lair forevermore.

But really, Erik and Henry should just meet each other. Hopefully they would spontaneously combust through the sheer amount of horrible in the room. But if not, Erik could keep Henry captive; it would probably be a good learning experience for Henry.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether that's a relief or just kind of mean. If she marries Freddy, why couldn't that actually happen in the play?

[goldjadeocean.livejournal.com]

Because it's a fairly meanspirited author's note, meant to completely poke fun at the entire play he'd just written. :/ There are copies of the original Pygmalion online, which have the note at the end.

[goldjadeocean.livejournal.com]

Erik/Henry: they share a common passion in perfect articulation and telling young women they're using their voices wrong! It must be love.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Haha, best crack ship ever! Clearly it all begins when Erik hears of Henry's work and is all "He is teaching articulation incorrectly!" and is thus forced, forced I tell you! to imprison Henry in his lair so Henry cannot spread his foul teachings any further.

I am not sure how the story would get from "imprisonment" to "love," but there are clearly people who find My Fair Lady and Phantom romantic, so I daresay there will be an audience for it.

[silverusagi]

I've seen My Fair Lady once, and I was kind of surprised by how awful Henry was, even by the end. I thought she should have gone with that other guy (Freddy?). I didn't see why she even went back to Henry.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes, Freddy. I've made it my new headcanon that Eliza went back to Henry only long enough to destroy all his beloved phonographs - those are, after all, the true love of his life - and then Eliza and Freddy ran away to Australia.

[silverusagi]

Like, I kind of thought MFL was going to be one of those stories where the lady 'changes' the guy by the virtue of her love or something, but he was still awful!

[ursula]

It's a highly discursive note.

Eliza has no use for the foolish romantic tradition that all women love to be mastered, if not actually bullied and beaten.

...

This being the state of human affairs, what is Eliza fairly sure to do when she is placed between Freddy and Higgins? Will she look forward to a lifetime of fetching Higgins's slippers or to a lifetime of Freddy fetching hers? There can be no doubt about the answer. Unless Freddy is biologically repulsive to her, and Higgins biologically attractive to a degree that overwhelms all her other instincts, she will, if she marries either of them, marry Freddy.

And that is just what Eliza did.

Then there is a lot of stuff about starting a flower shop.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I was enormously cheesed off by the end of the movie and complained about it to my mom all the way home from the theater (I was 7 or 8). Mom thought it was romantic; I was utterly crushed by Eliza going back to that awful old man. I love this entry so much!

[entwashian.livejournal.com]

It's called a NOtp.

And yeah, Eliza/Higgins is gross.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Well, that is true! But I can theoretically imagine a Phantom AU where Erik is still recognizably himself but not psychotic. And I'm not sure I can imagine a MFL AU where Henry isn't an ass.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

This is a thing of beauty.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Ha, brilliant! Of course Eliza has no use for that: she has her father to bully and beat her, after all, why would she need a lover to do it?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I <3 fandom, it has a name for everything.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I suppose it makes the ending more explicable if some people do see it as romantic...? No, really, it's still a pretty awful ending.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to envision Erik-who-is-Erik but doesn't skulk around in basements, become obsessed with young women and try to control their entire lives, and kill people who get in his way. We might be able to downgrade him to normal levels of creepy stalkerishness, without the killing people part?

But I think "alarmingly obsessed with Christine" is pretty central to his character. Like, in a high school AU he would probably sit outside her house all night, staring worshipfully at her dark window and thinking dark thoughts about that damn quarterback Raoul.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

THEORETICALLY. I think it would be hard. And I guess it also depends on what you think the core of the character is. I'm not sure it's the stalking; for me it's the genius outsider part.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

There's a LOT more to Shaw's 'Sequel' than just the flower shop! Worth reading it all.

Shaw doing fan-fic to his own play, FTW!

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gbshaw/bl-gbshaw-pyg-seq.htm

That is how it has turned out. It is astonishing how much Eliza still manages to meddle in the housekeeping at Wimpole Street in spite of the shop and her own family. And it is notable that though she never nags her husband [Freddy], and frankly loves the Colonel as if she were his favorite daughter, she has never got out of the habit of nagging Higgins that was established on the fatal night when she won his bet for him. She snaps his head off on the faintest provocation, or on none. He no longer dares to tease her by assuming an abysmal inferiority of Freddy's mind to his own. He storms and bullies and derides; but she stands up to him so ruthlessly that the Colonel has to ask her from time to time to be kinder to Higgins; and it is the only request of his that brings a mulish expression into her face.

Yay for Shaw!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Haha, I think it's probably good for Higgins to be nagged mercilessly.