Beauty and Film: A Study on the Portrayal of Beauty in My Fair Lady by George

Cukor
Anson Varghese Mangalan
Student
M A English Literature, Semester 1
Department of English Literature
Christ College, Irinjalakuda
Thrissur
ansonans@gmail.com
Mob. No. 9633129534
Abstract
The Academy Award winning film titled My Fair Lady (1964) by the world famous film
director George Cukey. The film is based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw.
The movie portrays how a poor Cockney flower seller named Eliza Doolittle who overhears
an arrogant phonetics professor, Henry Higgins, as he casually wagers that he could teach her
to speak “proper” English, thereby making her presentable in the high society of the
“fashionable” Edwardian London. Eliza’s transformation from a simpleton to that of an
independent “beautiful” woman makes up the plot of the movie.
Eliza Doolittle was beautiful to begin with. Much before she was “transformed” by Henry
Higgins into a respectable Lady. But her beauty was unrecognized by the short sighted
society which placed her social position and her attire as measuring tools to evaluate the
extend of her beauty. The paper explores how the concept of beauty is portrayed and
juxtaposed with the concept of propriety in the aforementioned film. The parameters of
beauty should never be limited to the external appearance of a person or a thing-this profound
and often neglected truth is inferred from the study.
Keywords: Self-realization, True-beauty, Self-esteem.
INTRODUCTION

What do we mean when we say that a person is ‘fair’? In the case of the meanings that refer
to the ‘beauty’ of a person or thing, one can sum up ‘being fair’ as the quality of being
‘beautiful or ‘light in colour particularly as regards skin tone’. The title of the movie ‘My Fair
Lady’ is a good subject to rack our brains upon and the movie is based upon the play
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. What are the qualities that make a person fair? How is
beauty and fairness related? How far can fairness be used as a tool for measuring beauty?
These questions shall be pondered upon in the paper. Eliza Doolittle, one of the important
characters in the movie, belonged to the lower class people of the English society. In many
ways, Eliza was on the receiving end of mockery and ridicule from Professor Henry Higgins,
a phonetician and another important character in the movie, for her dialect and dirtiness.
Eliza’s transformation into what the British high society regarded as a great beauty can be
seen in the movie.

The Fair V/S the Not-so-Fair

The movie begins with the portrayal of pompousness and grandeur of the elite class in the
British society. This is portrayed by their leaving the church after attending a Holy Mass.
They’re portrayed as the ideals of beauty with their vibrant coloured clothes, different
varieties of hats, the best-in-class tuxedos and other varieties of coats, well-kept hair, fur
coats to protect them from the cold weather, horse-carriages and taxis to take them to their
destinations, valets surrounding them attending to their every need, women wearing high
heels et cetera. The elite class people speak softly without making much noise as they speak
so as to not cause any disturbance to the person next to them. Even though the women had
difficulty walking with the high heels, they never showed it as it meant a serious blow to their
social position.
The difference in the attitudes of the ‘fair’ and ‘not-so-fair’ classes are exemplified in many
instances throughout the movie. When the people left the church, there was a heavy rain. The
elite class people ran to find shelter or taxis whereas the working class people still toiled in
the rain. For them, the rain was not a curse unlike the elite class people. Here, when one
ponder upon the beauty of the mind of the poor as well as the rich, one may seem to favour
the mind-set of the poor more. The unfair attitude of the supposed ‘fair’ class can be seen
when some gentlemen walked selfishly in their umbrellas whereas the women had to walk in
the rain. Not so ‘gentlemanly’ of them. Also, when Eliza bumps into Freddy, another
character in the movie, and Eliza loses a few flowers to the rain Freddy apologizes for it but
doesn’t help her out by paying her something for her loss. Eliza on understanding that the
woman nearby is Freddy’s mother asks her if she could help her out and pay her something
for her loss. She doesn’t help her out. This can be taken as another example of how un-fair
can the supposed ‘fair’ class people (high class) be.
Eliza’s beauty lies in the fact that although her education was elementary, she possessed a
superior knowledge. The sort of the practical kind. One could draw a parallel to Ibsen’s A
Doll’s House and the protagonist of the novel Nora. Nora was even denied elementary
education. But what made Nora face all the obstacles and harsh realities of life and still carry
on was her practical knowledge. In both the case of Eliza and Nora, one can see that practical
knowledge is superior to formal education in many ways. As Freddy’s mother enquires to
Colonel Pickering (another important character in the movie) if the rain will stop anytime
soon, he says that the rain was worse than before. As Eliza overhears this conversation, she
says that they should cheer up since if the rain was worse than before, then it means that it
was nearly over.
As Eliza is informed of someone jotting down everything that she was saying, she was
alarmed with the prospect of a possible detective spying on her. She cries out and starts to
defend her ‘noble’ intentions and that she was innocent. Her naïve nature is easily forgiven
by the audience as they could sympathize with her lack of proper education. But as the events
unfolds and Mr. Higgins describes her using any insulting remarks like ‘crooning like a
bilious pigeon’, ‘prisoner of the gutters’ et cetera, the audience will most probably feel a
dislike for his pride and arrogance. He feels that only a select few portions of the English
society speaks proper English. He thinks that only the ‘fair’ class members speak proper
‘beautiful’ English and that all the others are destroying the language. He was not having an
open mind to accept the rustic beauty of the language as spoken in various dialects as he was
a phonetician.
The cry of Eliza is described as ‘disgusting’ and ‘repressing’ by Mr. Higgins. His character
can be taken as a fair example of the elite classes prevalent during the Victorian era. The elite
classes psyche during the same time period is well portrayed using the character of Mr.
Higgins. Also Mr. Higgins proclaims that the usages like ‘Ow’ and ‘Garn’ are what keeps
Eliza in the lower strata of the society. As Higgins puts it, at the bottom of the ‘verbal
classes’. The verbal class distinction should have been long gone according to him but due to
the bad teaching method of the English language, it is still largely prevalent. Mr. Higgins
feels that the impeccable use of the English language will enhance the beauty of the already
beautiful language of Shakespeare and Milton.
The attitude of the English society as a whole is also well portrayed by the character of Mr.
Higgins. The English consider themselves as the most ‘fairest’ among all people. They
despise Scottish and Irish accents of the language and mocks them. Mr. Higgins is also used
as a tool to mock the American accent of English when he says ‘in America, they have not
used the language for years’.
Mr. Higgins further describes Eliza as a ‘squashed cabbage leaf’, ‘disgrace to the noble
architecture of these columns’, ‘incarnate insult to the English language’ which shows his
thinking of how he and his fellow true speakers of English are superior to the lowly bred. He
constantly ridicules Eliza for speaking ‘bad’ English
The wishes of the poor people are not usually very huge but are most certainly beautiful. For
Eliza, all she wished was for a room of her own, a large chair to sit, a good fire to keep warm,
lots of chocolate to eat and someone who loves her and takes good care of her. The picture of
her dream is truly beautiful although it may not appear to be a big dream. The simple annals
of the poor is well portrayed as Eliza says these lines. She says ‘wouldn’t it be lovely if I had
all these’.
The portrayal of different flowers for sale is also quite a beautiful sight in the movie. Many
different varieties of flowers of many different colours are displayed by the florists on the
street and in their shops. The flowers could be given a symbolic meaning as if they were
referring to the true beauty and fairness of people.
When Eliza remembers how Mr. Higgins boasted that he could transform her into a lady or a
duchess if he was given six months’ time to train her, she goes to see him and to get English
language lessons from him. As an explanation to the dirt on her face, she says that London
was getting so dirty these days. This can be interpreted as a jibe at the condition of London
during the Victorian era. Another jibe could be witnessed by the audience as Eliza retorts to
Mr. Pearce, housekeeper of Mr. Higgins, that Mr. Higgins and she was a proud lot. The dirt
could be viewed as symbolic to the accent that she had as viewed by the English high society.
Mr. Higgins further calls Eliza a ‘baggage’ as he felt that she kept bugging him with the
request of teaching her proper English. Her worth as an individual and her fairness is not
noticed at all by Higgins. All he saw in her was a potential bet. He saw her as a thing devoid
of emotions since he regarded himself as a misogynist and a confirmed old bachelor.
Mr. Higgins further describes her as ‘deliciously low’, ‘so horribly dirty’ and ‘draggle tailed
guttersnipe’. He calls her talking as slum prudery and when he was asked about where to put
her, he tells Mrs. Pearce to put her in the dustbin. He also calls her ‘barbarous wretch’. When
Mrs. Pearce tells Eliza that one can’t be a nice girl on the inside if one was dirty on the
outside. This single line said by Mrs. Pearce exactly shows the attitude of the high society in
Victorian England. They categorized people by ‘what they wear’ outside instead of ‘what
there were’ inside. The external appearance mattered more than anything else. This particular
feature gives a certain universality to the movie as this attitude is still prevalent in the 21st
century. The attitude is still seen in many people which makes this thought very relevant.
People who look good are generally thought to be good-natured and so are treated better. In
this case, true beauty of a person is at question as one may ponder if the external beauty or
the internal fairness was more necessary and real.
As Eliza enters the bedroom which was to be occupied by her for the period of her training,
she felt fear of making anything she touches dirty. This could be interpreted as her
understanding of how she was seen by the society. She knew where she stood in the eyes of
the people, in other words, she knew ‘her place’. But if not for her dirty face, old torn and
cheap clothes and Cornish accent, she was a very good and ‘fair’ person.
Eliza’s toils could be seen as she was asked to repeat the same vowel sound over and over
again till she mastered it. She was denied of proper sleep and rest. She was on the verge of
tears but Mr. Higgins pretended not to mind her problems. The quick learning and
hardworking mentality can be seen as she remembers to sneeze to her handkerchief rather
than her sleeves. She remembers what Mr. Higgins had first instructed her on her path to a
lady. These could be interpreted as the first signs of her transformation to a lady.
For many nights and days, Eliza was given many different sort of spoken exercises. She
toiled night and day under a rather impatient Professor Higgins and a patient Colonel
Pickering. Mr. Higgins and Mr. Pickering have their food and tea at proper intervals while
Eliza is forced to train and watch. She is not even given any amount of sympathy. She is
considered to be devoid of basic human emotions and needs like hunger, fatigue et cetera.
She kept on toiling and one day it was three in the morning when a transformation took place.
Eliza was really tired and Mr. Higgins was having a headache. Here, Higgins showed a bit of
sympathy to Eliza when he offered his utensil to Eliza as she too was having a head ache. She
was instructed by Higgins about the immensity of the thing that she was trying to accomplish.
As Higgins showed that he put his faith on Eliza, she understood the working of phonetics
and started pronouncing the words correctly.
A little bit of empathy and encouragement is all that is required sometimes to inspire
someone and bring out their true potential and beauty. This is instantiated in the case of Eliza.
Next, one can see another instance of the supposedly beautiful upper class of Victorian
England. All the earls, dukes and peers and their wives have come to the Ascot opening day.
All of them were showcasing their wealth with their costly costumes, jewellery etc. They felt
that they were beautiful because of their wealth, class and their sense of propriety. But in fact,
they are snobbish, jealous and have a certain amount of hatred to each other although their
positions do not allow them to show it. They have all put on fake faces as they come to this
social gathering. They are ridiculed further for their mannerisms, fashion sense etc. True
beauty or fairness is portrayed as missing in such fake personas.
Into their midst, enter Eliza all dressed up elegantly for Ascot. She speaks and shows all the
mannerisms of a lady and everyone’s impressed with her beauty and manner. She keeps up
the ruse until the end of the race when she accidently swears in the adrenaline rush of her
winning a bet. Some of the ladies become angry, some others faints upon hearing her. Eliza
was seen as quite a stunning beauty before she had uttered a swearing word. But after that,
her beauty was somewhat questionable to the lords and ladies present at the Ascot. They felt
that manners and language also played a vital role in measuring one’s beauty.
After much preparation, Eliza is brought to the ball at the embassy where all the major heads
of the states including the Queen herself was present. She acts so well that he caught the
attention of all the guests including the Queen herself. She was even given the honour of
dancing with the Prince. But the greatest triumph of Eliza and Mr. Higgins was that they were
even able to fool Mr. Zoltan Karpathy, a language expert and an impostorologist. With his
blackguard-ish ways, he said that Eliza was a Hungarian princess. In that way, all the effort
and time that Eliza put into this worked. But Colonel Pickering and the household staff of Mr.
Higgins only applauded Higgins for his efforts while not even once congratulating Eliza. It
was her beauty and transformation to a lady that won the day. It was all mainly her efforts but
all that went unnoticed except by Mr. Higgins’ mother.

CONCLUSION
Eliza was distraught at the absence of any sort of applause for her effort. She leaves Mr.
Higgins’ household at night. She goes to the street in which she had worked in but nobody
recognized her since now she looked and talked all too lady-like. She met Mr. Higgins’
mother and told her everything that transpired. Only after she left did Mr. Higgins and Mr.
Pickering understood her worth. Both of them missed her and wanted her back. One of the
things that Eliza says is quite thought provoking. She says apart from the good manners that
one can pick up, the difference between a lady and a flower is not all about how she behaves
but how she is treated. This could be interpreted as another way of saying the way a person
treats another person can make both of them all the more beautiful and respectful. All she
wanted was a little kindness from Mr. Higgins and she wasn’t given that. In the end, in his
pride, Mr. Higgins felt that she could do without Eliza and storms back into his home. But he
gets lonely as he had grown accustomed to her presence. The movie ends with the happy note
as Mr. Higgins listens to a recording of Eliza’s voice, she comes back to him and be his
friend.
Eliza’s transformation from a dirty low-class flower seller to a beautiful lady is what makes
up the plot of the movie. Her transformation was not just physically or rather not just on the
outside, but it happened inside too. Although Eliza was beautiful to begin with, her beauty
was recognized only when she learned the mannerisms of a lady. Her sense of propriety made
her beautiful in the eyes of the elite class. But her transformation came as a result of a lot of
struggle from her part and patience from the part of Mr. Higgins. Another interesting fact that
one can see in the movie is that Eliza’s independence is what is attained by her as she was
transformed into a lady. She could do anything she desires now and her previous problem of
her social class won’t stand in her way. The movie portrays how social class can influence a
person’s beauty and freedom.

WORKS CITED
My Fair Lady. Directed by George Cukor, Warner Bros., 9 Nov. 1964.