Current Forum: Session 8: Love and Hollywood's Master Narratives	Read 14 times 	
Date: 05-Mar-2001 18:48:19	
Author: FRANK, KYLE G. <kgf4068@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>	
Subject: Change or Status Quo? 	
 [Remove]	
		
       As I read over the preexisting posts, I could not help but notice the amount of space that has been dedicated to Mulvey’s ideas from “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”.  This does not surprise me, considering the blatant and numerous shots demonstrating Vivian’s “to-be-looked-at-ness”.  In fact, it is this cinematic device of overvaluation that stood out to me the most this time that I watched Pretty Woman.  
       Throughout the entire film, with the possible exception of the ending (which I will address below), maintains Vivian’s role as woman/image and female/passive (Mulvey 134).  Simultaneously, Edward consistently complements Vivian’s role by playing the active/male.  Perhaps this is a bit ironic considering the film’s superficial claims to transformation.  Vivian is transformed from low class prostitute to high class, and Edward is transformed from insensitive womanizer and business executive into caring Indeed, the film is about the transformation of both male and female, that is Edward and Vivian; however, it does so without altering the status quo.  
       How does it do this?  I believe that it is through the magical ingredient “love”.  Thus, we see two characters “change” after their initial economic encounter.  Although Madonne Miner does recognize the factor of emotion and love in Edward’s life, I feel that see downplays the effect that it has in Vivian’s.  For example, Miner notes that Edward turns from someone who “will not let [him]self get emotionally involved in business” to “essentially join[ing] a ‘family’” (179).  It is allowing emotion in to his life that lets Edward become an “eligible” husband for Vivian.  Likewise, Miner notes that Vivian must learn her role as woman, which for Miner entails mastering the art of spending (181).  While the movie certainly portrays Vivian as learning how to shop, she, like Edward, must allow herself to become emotionally close to her companion.  The prostitute who “does it like a robot” must allow herself to kiss Edward and admit that she loves him.  The fact that she says so while she believes that Edward is sleeping reveals her hesitance at sharing emotions.  However, the narrative resolves this conflict, bringing man and woman together on “equal” ground seen through the rose-tinted glasses of Hollywood, where “dreams come can come true.”
       Love, therefore, is portrayed as the “neutral” and innocuous ingredient that not brings change, but does so in a positive way.  However, by focusing attention on love and its ability to “change” the characters, the film draws attention away from the fact that it reinforces ideology in terms of class, race, gender, and sexuality.  It is at this point that I would like to address how Hollywood’s portrayal of love (at least in Pretty Woman) works in relationship with the ideas expressed by Lynn Weber in his article “A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality”.  I think it is important to note how the construction of  love works in relationship with each of these categories as portrayed in Pretty Woman.
       Unlike Elizabeth, I do not downplay the factor of race in the film.  Granted, James Snead’s idea of “omission” (189) is operating to a degree in the film.  However, as Elizabeth has listed, there are a number of different races actively portrayed in the film.  None of these plays a central role in the love relationship (i.e. none of these are a part of the couple).  This, however, does not diminish the factor of race in the love narrative.  I would argue the opposite, saying that it is the “inactive” presence of the minority characters that constructs what is necessary for “true” love.  This is brought out most in the character of Kit de Luca, Vivian’s friend and business partner.  Kit acts as a foil for Vivian in that she is present and discusses her views with Vivian, but cannot (or so Hollywood would have us believe) become part of a “true” love relationship.  Furthermore, the film reinforces her loveless position   Why?  The film itself suggests that she so chooses.  When at the bar in the beginning of the film, Vivian voices her desire to get out of “here”.  Kit replies, “Where is there to go?”  Whether she enjoys her class position or lacks the energy/intelligence to escape her present conditions, the film portrays Kit’s social class as her “rightful” place.  This is later reinforced when Vivian invites her to move to San Francisco.  Of course, Kit declines—she apparently enjoys her “place in society”.
       Who then is afforded the opportunity to participate in romantic discourse and, therefore, class mobility?  Vivian, the white female.  However, even Vivian’s change does not alter the ideological framework of race, class, gender, and sex.  Vivian maintains the role of icon throughout the film—she is “to be looked at”.  Granted, the context of the gaze changes from lustful leering (to borrow Jennie’s words) to adoring admiration.  Fetishistic shots of leather boots, lacy bras, and extreme close ups of body parts, give way to elegant dresses, a white nightshirt, and medium to long shots.  Nonetheless, what has changed is not Vivian’s gender role, but the context of how we, the spectators are to see that role.  Although the male gaze becomes coded “positive”, Vivian remains a visual icon.  Perhaps the only time that Vivian’s status as icon falters is the end of the film.  
       Towards the end of the film, Vivian’s apparel becomes less provocative/more restrained.  Likewise, the fetishistic shots diminish.  However, this does not alter Vivian’s role as an icon.  Instead, I interpret this more like how Mulvey interprets Dietrich films:  the female’s “supreme moments of erotic meaning take place in the absence of the man she loves in the fictions” (136).  Although Edward is present in the early voyeuristic scenes, he is another male in the audience.  Vivian is “fair game”.  However, as the narrative progresses, “true love” is legitimized by curtailing the male gaze.  Vivian now belongs to Edward.