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| 20th Century eyes! I am so old I went to school in the last millennium. |
When
my class was studying The Merchant of Venice for GSCE in 1994, Mrs McCormack, the
English teacher, would regularly implore us to ‘stop seeing the play through 20th Century eyes’. Apparently the anti-semitism was all fine and dandy as long as you remembered it had been written
when racial abuse and a fear of difference were all part of happy old-skool Venetian
life. Or something like that. Since then, the concept of '20th Century eyes'
regularly pops into my head. At least the concept of remembering a play/book/song is from a different time, does anyway.
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| Nah. You're alright Rich, love. I'm fine where I am. |
And so it was last week. Pretty Woman was on the telly. It's not a great film to watch as an adult. Cosy
prostitution? 'Sexy' Richard Gere who wants to pay, not only for sex, but for a
woman to be at his beck and call because he doesn't want the complications of
a real life girlfriend whilst he does his important man business? All a bit yuck.
Viewing with enlightened feminist eyes means it is a problematic film. But oh
how I devoured it as a youth.
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| To be fair, this is a good message. |
It
came out when I was twelve. It was 1990 and back then I loved it. I first saw it at
my friend Anne's house on video. I wasn't allowed to watch cosy prostitution
films round mine so I had to be discreet. Later, my best friend at high school,
Joanna, invited me to her house where we watched it repeatedly. Every time I
was there, we put it on. We also quoted it. Every day at school. Key
lines became our bread and butter. ‘You're on my fax’. ‘Well that's one I've haven't been on before’. Standard. Like breathing. ‘Well colour me happy there's
a sofa in here for two.’ And then of course there's the classic. The line that makes me bite the insides of my cheeks to stop saying aloud, at times. When you
see a particularly po-faced woman in Marksies, shopping for granny pants with
her long suffering husband. I have to force closed my mouth to stop shouting, 'Fifty bucks Grandpa! For seventy-five the wife can watch'. I know. I am a bad
person.
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| 'Work it, work it baby'. |
It
was four years ago that I heard Joanna had died. It was in the local paper, despite her having moved away. We'd long since lost touch but
losing a fight against breast cancer at 34 seems particularly shite. When
Pretty Woman came on TV the other night I almost kept scrolling. But the early
scene I'd chanced upon happened to feature one of our quotes. 'Can I call you
Eddie? Not if you expect me to answer.' Not only is this a great answer to that
question, one that can be adapted to any number of similarly phrased enquiries, but it also took me straight back to the early 90s, to High School and to Joanna.
Sometimes it is necessary to stop looking at everything through feminist eyes and just enjoy the memories and nostalgia of stuff before you
knew what you thought. Of revisiting the formation of who you became. And the
good news is, as formative as my years were when I devoured it, Pretty Woman didn't make
me become a prostitute. Not so far, anyway. Nor did it make me need a prince in a white limousine to rescue me right back. Even less likely. It just gave me the usual teen stuff of sharing a film with friends, being silly at school as well as a bunch of funny memories. When I read her obituary, Joanna's legal career sounded pretty damn
impressive. Quoting Pretty Woman lines in RE, however, is the way I choose to
remember her.
Have a lovely week, folks.
*Thank
you for asking. When Harry Met Sally, Shirley Valentine, and Much Ado About
Nothing. No, it's fine, you're welcome.
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