I read Pygmalion my senior year of high school. We did a video project in which I was a terrible rapper. My friend Matt claimed he could teach me to rap, and my friend Michael said he couldn’t before the talent show in a week. Matt taught me, I won the talent show, and Matt won the bet. It was fun and it got the general concept across.
For whatever reason, I’m a sucker for 90’s movies. I love stuff like “Summer Catch”, “A Few Good Men”, and “Not Another Teen Movie”. One of the movies that I liked was called “She’s All That”. It was funny and it taught a good lesson, but I had no idea that it was basically a modern-day remake of Pygmalion. It never registered with me that it was until I read Pygmalion in high school, and when I looked it up on Wikipedia out of curiosity one day, I saw that “She’s All That” was listed as an adaptation.
This is actually one of the few instances in which I kind of enjoy seeing adaptations of a play rather than just reading it. It certainly is not a boring play to read, but I it seems to me like the idea of betting on someone’s success is a more modern activity, so it feels natural to put it in a modern media display. I think the best thing about the play is the theme of “collateral damage”. Even though Freddy and Higgins didn’t mean to hurt Eliza, they did.
It's very interesting that She's All That is a modern day adaptation of Pygmalion. I never would have guessed that but I can see it now that you've mentioned it. In fact, the whole "betting on someone's success" has been portrayed in quite a few modern movies. I agree that it seems like a modern sort of idea, but clearly the concept has been around for longer than we had imagined.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that this play is not boring like many other ones that I have read. I have only read the first two acts, but it sounds promising. And I really liked how the play had a more modern feel to it after reading many older works in this class. This play was quite refreshing and is much easier to understand because it is written in a language that I am more used to and understand. From your blog post, it sounds as though everything does not turn out like it should and that surprises me. usually in comedies, everyone is content in the end and have what they want. I can't wait to finish reading and see how Eliza gets hurt.
ReplyDeleteI can see how the movie, "She's All That" is a modern-day interpretation of the play, Pygmalion. In the movie, the popular jock makes over the nerdy art student, turning her into a refined bombshell. In the play, Higgins takes on the task of transforming Eliza from uneducated-sounding person she is to a duchess. How did I not see this before?!
ReplyDeleteThanks for making the comparison!
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