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My Fair Lady (1964) is, essentially, a Cinderella story about a young woman named Eliza Doolittle who grew up poor and is turned into a shining creature even a prince would ask to dance. In many ways this musical seems less about the woman and more about the men who built her up. There are four men who play a role in Eliza's life and growth, not only as a well-mannered lady but as a person. All of them in some way see themselves as righteous men who know what is best and conduct themselves accordingly. However, none of them really understand the harm they do to Eliza until she chooses to show them or simply walks out of their lives. In this way, Eliza is the strongest character in the film, a character that could only be played by a woman because she is so accustomed to being an observer and therefore sees everything while these men only see what they want to. In my opinion, her transformation is mainly of her own doing, especially on an emotional level, and the film is about her realizing that she is strong and worthy as a human being even without her teachers and supporters there behind her.
The basic story of My Fair Lady goes as such:
Eliza Doolittle encounters Colonel Pickering and Professor Henry Higgins one evening after she tried selling Pickering a bundle of violets while Higgins studied her Cockney accent nearby. Higgins claims to everyone present that he can teach someone like Eliza to speak like a lady, which could get her a far better job than selling flowers, and this gets Eliza's attention. As Higgins and Pickering are leaving to spend the evening talking linguistics, Higgins throws a handful of change into her flower basket in an act of spiteful charity. Eliza decides to take this money back to Higgins in exchange for lessons, but not before giving her drunken father a bit.
When Eliza arrives asking for lessons, Higgins wants to send her away, since she did not realize how expensive his fees actually are, until Pickering offers to pay for the lessons out of curiosity. They proceed to make a bet that Higgins cannot turn Eliza into a princess for the embassy ball in six months. So, Eliza is cleaned up, moves into the lavish house, and begins her arduous lessons. Before a week has gone by, her father Alfred shows up and walks away with a five pound note for the "inconvenience" of not having his daughter around.
For weeks Higgins, Pickering, and Eliza spend their every waking hour working on her lessons, denying Eliza sweets and luxuries when she does not perform. Finally, after Higgins breaks down for tiredness and gives her some positive encouragement for the first time, Eliza has a breakthrough and is able to speak like a lady. All three celebrate, and Eliza is not able to sleep at all that night she is so excited to have achieved something in life and happy to have Higgins' approval at last.
Soon after, they three go to the racetrack to see how she passes. Although her accent is perfect, she is almost found out when her small talk skills fail and her poor etiquette leads her to shouting profanities at the horses. Her only saving grace is that she has caught the eye of Freddy Eynsford Hill, a young gentleman. He takes a liking to her oddness and begins to hang around on the street near Higgins' house hoping to see her or talk to her.
Eliza's training continues until the embassy ball, and she is absolutely beautiful in her gown. Higgins is shocked by how regal she looks, how in control, and he must have a bit of liquid courage before he can re-assume his bravado. The whole ball is wonderful, even when the Transylvanian prince asks her to dance and rumors about who she is go floating around.
When they return home, Higgins and Pickering tell the servants all about the evening, saying that the best guess anyone had about where Eliza comes from is Hungarian royalty. Sadly, Pickering attributes the success to Higgins and Higgins attributes much of the success to Pickering, although only out of politeness. No one acknowledges Eliza during the entire scene. At first she waits to be included, then tries bringing Higgins his slippers to get even that much attention, then resigns herself to standing in the corner until everyone leaves the room. She breaks down crying, realizing that the men really will throw her back out into the street now that they are done with her. Higgins comes back looking for his slippers and is completely confused as to why Eliza is sad. He still does not understand her needs as a person and has come to take her for granted, never once considering what she will do with herself now that the bet is won.
Eliza leaves, only to be confronted by the love struck Freddy, and they take a carriage to the square where she used to sell flowers in the streets. No one there recognizes her at all and her state of limbo feels more overwhelming than ever, for she does not belong with them anymore, nor does she belong in the wealthy world where she has trained. Her father happens to be there and it turns out that Higgins played a joke on him by referring him to a fellow gentlemen looking to improve the morality of the lower classes. That man left Eliza's father all his fortune and now his girlfriend wants a wedding. Eliza leaves her father to his miserable life as a wealthy man without the privilege of falling down drunk in the street and goes to Higgins' mother's home.
The next morning, Higgins, Pickering, and the housekeeper realize that she is missing. Their conversations reveal that Elisa had either been tasked with or had taken charge of the daily schedules for everyone, and now they are all lost. Pickering goes to the police department in a fit of panic, while Higgins walks to his mother's home to see if she has seen Eliza. Lo and behold, Eliza is there and she tells Higgins that he is not the all important man he thinks he is and that she will be fine without him. She threatens to marry Freddy. Higgins insults her repeatedly throughout her speech, until finally he cannot take it anymore and gets right up in her face to say he likes what she has become now that he has built her up into a fine, feisty lady. Rather than retaliate, Eliza bids Higgins ado, and walks away. Higgins' mother overhears the whole thing and is very satisfied with how Eliza put him in his place, shaking his throne.
Higgins goes home in a rage fuming about Eliza's decision to marry Freddy and the fact that he already misses her. The house feels empty without her, and his every attempt to feel joyful about the terrible life she will lead with Freddy fails when he remembers that she will no longer be there with him. Filled with regret for his terrible treatment of her, Higgins finds the recording he made when she first came in the house asking for lessons. He listens to how she came in trying to make something better of herself, only to have him talk down to her like street trash, claiming that he would be the one to change her. Eliza returns at that moment, having punished Higgins as much as she wanted to, and turns off the recording. For a moment Higgins lights up with joy, but catches himself and asks for his slippers instead. Eliza smiles and the credits roll.
So, let's analyze the role of the men in Eliza's life and the film, and how she manages to rise above all their expectations.
The first man in Eliza's life is her father Alfred, a drunk who shows up every now and then to ask her for a bit of money. Eliza's mother seemingly passed away sometime in the past and Eliza has been on her own since then, aside from Alfred's occasional parenting that allegedly came in the form of beatings. He is meant to show just how low Eliza's background is, appearing at Higgins' doorstep after hearing through the grapevine that she has moved in with some unknown man. Not only does he not truly care about Eliza being there with a bachelor, Alfred actually hopes for some compensation as a parent giving away his child to whatever they need the girl for. He admits that he is not married to Eliza's "stepmother," who we never see, and that he was not married to her mother either, which makes Eliza a bastard child, the lowest of the low. Over the course of the film, Alfred has two songs that are both all about his love of throwing aside responsibility and morality, although he actually comes into money and responsibility towards the end as a cruel joke. Like Eliza, he finds himself moving up socially, although it is through money rather than speech and manners, and he has to find a way to come to terms with it since he truly never wanted to be anything but a drunken life without any strings attached. In the end, Eliza chooses to walk away, for social status should not heal a relationship that was already so broken. Alfred is a smooth talker and where Eliza gets her own quick tongue from, but the resemblance ends there. He tried to bring Eliza down with him into the laziness of the bottom of society, but she chose to work instead and even behaves charitably enough towards him to give him a coin now and then.
Colonel Pickering is the second man Eliza encounters, almost simultaneously with Professor Higgins and Freddy Eynsford Hill, two other members of the gentry. He is the only man we see outside of the embassy ball who consistently treats her respectfully, although he does call her "girl" like all the rest because he, too, does not see her as a lady. While Pickering is sympathetic towards Eliza, giving her some charitable pocket change when they first meet, his interest in Eliza only takes hold when she shows up at the professor's house asking for lessons and Higgins claims he can pass her off as a lady. Pickering is more intrigued by the bet than he is concerned about elevating Eliza in any way. He of course has a chat with Higgins about treating Eliza well and not taking advantage of the young woman, but it comes from his sense of propriety as a gentlemen. Eliza quickly looks to him as a good man who looks out for her, which is why it is so sad when Pickering gives all the credit for her achievements to Higgins alone after their success at the embassy ball. The disappointment and lack of acknowledgment are crushing, and contribute to her decision to leave the house without warning. Although Higgins is the person she most wants revenge against, Pickering is punished by her absence too. While he might have seen her as a project and a mere girl before, he suddenly becomes as worried as an uncle, calling the police about her disappearance. Although we do not see him again in the film, we can be sure that he will welcome her back with relief and open arms. By choosing to walk away from those who did not appreciate her, Eliza may have unwittingly gained herself a true father figure.
The young man Freddy Eynsford Hill is the third man of importance in Eliza's journey. He first meets Eliza when she bumps into him on the street, but he is never impolite to her in any way, although he spares her little attention back then. It is unclear whether Freddy ever learns that Eliza is that same poor woman from the beginning, but he still falls in love with her knowing next to nothing about her. Indeed, he seems like a prince charming for a while. After learning to speak well, Eliza is brought to the racetrack for a day amongst the gentry to practice, escorted by Higgins and Pickering. Unfortunately, while Eliza's speech is nearly perfect, her manners and small talk skills have hardly made any progress and she proceeds to tell everyone about how she believes her aunt was murdered and how gin is "mother's milk" to her family members. Freddy is taken in by how unconventional she is in a sea of black and white women, and he proceeds to spend most of the film wandering around the street near HIggins' house. The first time I watched the film I thought that Eliza was uninterested in the handsome, rich young man because she was already in love with Higgins. However, I believe now that Eliza is 1) not in love with Higgins and 2) would not be interested in Freddy even if she was not preoccupied with her studies. He is clingy, insistent, and a bit dull in the head with no achievements to speak of besides having been born into his mother's wealthy home. After Eliza leaves after the embassy ball, she encounters Freddy and insists that he stop serenading her as she is so tired of talking. It seems that perhaps Freddy failed to do anything Eliza wanted him to, as he completely disappears from the film shortly after. Higgins reveals in his tirade at end that Freddy is completely useless and not at all a knight in shining armor, with no prospects and no ability to make money of his own. Eliza shows great merit as a person and a woman by not falling for Freddy's good looks or wealthy background, for she does not judge people by these criteria.
Professor Henry Higgins is the fourth and main man in Eliza's life as shown in the film. He is her teacher, guru, sensei, and savior, for he says that he can teach her to speak and act properly, which will get her a better job in a flower shop and allow her to live the warm and comfortable life she has always wanted. He takes a lot of pride in supposedly single-handedly transforming Eliza into a duchess worthy of an embassy ball. In some ways he is a progressive thinker, as he believes that a lot of what holds Eliza back is the upbringing that taught her to speak and act like a street urchin rather than her poverty, but in other ways he is just the opposite. Higgins believes that women are inherently sillier and and more unreasonable than men. He dedicates two songs to this point. In the first song he tells his friend Colonel Pickering, an expert in Indian dialects, that he will never let a woman in his life because they ruin an otherwise peaceful, studious life. At first this seems like it could be true, that he has a point, except that Higgins spends a good deal of the song spouting incredibly hypocritical statements about himself. He believes that he is a normal man who lives quietly, keeps to himself, does not offend anyone, and has the right to do whatever he wants. Well, the song preceding this one featured the men and women living in the gutter alongside Eliza dreaming of the humble, comfortable lives they wish they had instead of the hardworking struggle that they experience everyday. Henry Higgins is a spoiled member of the gentry who is actually highly eccentric in his own social circles, looking completely out of place at the racetrack for example, and incredibly nosy in all others. His first interaction with Eliza is the result of people noticing that he was recording her speech in his notebook, studying her accent. Later in the film, we learn that his mother is a very wealthy woman and seemingly the parent he grew up with, and perhaps her nagging is part of the reason why he dislikes women. He is accustomed to women of the gentry who have to spend all their time worrying about clothes, jewelry, social events, and the like, leaving little to no time for the things Higgins finds interesting. Higgins' second song about women comes towards the end after Eliza leaves and in his anger and confusion he asks the question "why can't women be more like men?" He once again claims that men are easy to please, hardly ever get angry, and are the best of friends. Again, this sort of song would seem to imply that the musical thinks this way, except that he is clearly being hypocritical once again. He wants everyone to be like him or his friends so that they will act in ways he understands. Higgins even has the gall to ask his housekeeper Mrs. Pearce why women are not more like men after subjecting her to his many whims and demands throughout the story. In short, Higgins is not meant to represent the argument that men are better; rather, he is a terribly flawed character, the biggest flaws being his intense egotism, eccentricity valued above manners, and sexist attitude. He goes back and forth between being Eliza's fairy godmother sending her to the ball and her wicked stepmother telling her she is scum. Although it takes a long time, Eliza is able to free herself from her delusions about Higgins' greatness when the men take credit for her life struggles and successes. She is able to step back and see just how self absorbed Higgins is, to the point that she is able to attack him in the best way: tell him he is not the most important person in the world or to her. Higgins tried to transform Eliza, but he only managed to teach her language and etiquette. Eliza, on the other hand, teaches Higgins to see that other people in the world have feelings and worth as people. Her greatest revenge is that she becomes his teacher in the way, talking down to him until he understands, and this then allows her to return to his side at the end.
There is one last thing to discuss: are Eliza and Professor Higgins in love? Personally I do not think so. I think you could actually make the argument that Higgins is gay, although I am not convinced that he is. The time period this character lived in required that men pay attention to their homes, their clothes, their manners, their relationships, etc. What I do think is that Elisa and Higgins enjoy each other's company. They respect each other, although it takes a while for Higgins to see and act on this. In a world of conventional people, they are two very unconventional parties who do not really belong with the gentry, but also do not belong in the streets. They both bewilder the housekeeper, mean a lot to Pickering and Higgins' mother, and never fail to draw attention at social gatherings. A turbulent pair they may be, but a pair nonetheless that will probably go on living under one roof despite the rumors.
