Gigi (1958)
January 10, 2025 5:15 PM - Subscribe
A home, a motorcar, servants, the latest fashions: the most eligible and most finicky bachelor in Paris offers them all to Gigi. But she, who's gone from girlish gawkishness to cultured glamour before our eyes, yearns for that wonderful something money can't buy.
The song Gigi is reminded me quite a lot of “I’ve grown accustomed to her face” from My Fair Lady.
I dunno. I’ve seen the poster often enough to assume this is a wildly popular musical but I’m a tad skeeved.
Gaston’s ennui speaks to me a bit.
Maybe if I were more familiar with the novel by Collette, I’d like the musical better.
posted by bunderful at 8:38 PM on January 10
I dunno. I’ve seen the poster often enough to assume this is a wildly popular musical but I’m a tad skeeved.
Gaston’s ennui speaks to me a bit.
Maybe if I were more familiar with the novel by Collette, I’d like the musical better.
posted by bunderful at 8:38 PM on January 10
Do they keep the fact that Gigi's family is grooming her to become a prostitute? Or do they elide it?
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 8:57 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 8:57 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
I saw it for the first time a couple of years ago. My take:
Vincente Minnelli’s turn of the century Gigi. A lame musical about a teenager prostitute school… Sorry, “Courtesans”. Hard to fathom that in 1958 it swept all the 9 Oscars it was nominated for! It opens with 70-year-old grandpa Maurice Chevalier singing “Thank Heaven For Little Girls", an ode to 7 year old girls with a sly smile on his face. Disturbingly creepy, it’s explicitly about “grooming”, or, how to train a young woman to be a mistress. 1/10.
At least it got me interested enough to read about the “Belle Époque”, the “Golden Age” era from a century ago, which had so many similarities to our recent past: A period “characterized by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity, colonial expansion, and technological, scientific, and cultural innovations”. And which ended so brutally by some certain historical calamities, the two World Wars…
posted by growabrain at 12:28 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Vincente Minnelli’s turn of the century Gigi. A lame musical about a teenager prostitute school… Sorry, “Courtesans”. Hard to fathom that in 1958 it swept all the 9 Oscars it was nominated for! It opens with 70-year-old grandpa Maurice Chevalier singing “Thank Heaven For Little Girls", an ode to 7 year old girls with a sly smile on his face. Disturbingly creepy, it’s explicitly about “grooming”, or, how to train a young woman to be a mistress. 1/10.
At least it got me interested enough to read about the “Belle Époque”, the “Golden Age” era from a century ago, which had so many similarities to our recent past: A period “characterized by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity, colonial expansion, and technological, scientific, and cultural innovations”. And which ended so brutally by some certain historical calamities, the two World Wars…
posted by growabrain at 12:28 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
It’s a musical. The first song is “thank heaven for little girls” sung by a male character over 50.The 1994 comedy "My Father, the Hero" (an English-language remake of the 1991 French comedy "Mon père, ce héros") is neither highly memorable nor recommendable but it does use this to amusing effect as the culmination of a (contrived) sequence of misunderstandings.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:33 AM on January 11
Do they keep the fact that Gigi's family is grooming her to become a prostitute? Or do they elide it?
Nah, it's still there that they are grooming her to be a courtesan. That's a key part of the narrative - the big pivotal scene towards the end is that the family wants her to be not just a courtesan, but a courtesan to Gaston, the aforementioned most eligible bachelor in Paris. Especially since Gaston already knows Gigi and her grandma, since he's been hanging out with them when he needs a bit of an off-night when he wants to chill out and have a break from High Society.
The vibe you get from the big climactic scene, where Gaston and Gigi have a grown-up night-on-the-town and Gaston now sees Gigi doing all the same little things that other courtesans have been doing with him (nothing pornographic, more things like selecting which cigar he should try or how she holds her champagne or suchlike), it freaks him out - because this is Gigi, the girl he used to chill out with and have killer games of cards with while her grandma fed them both pork stew. So he rejects the family's bid for Gigi to be his courtesan - because he is rejecting the whole courtesan-and-bachelor system, and he instead wants Gigi to be his wife. Which she reciprocates, so yay. Yeah, the whole grooming-to-be-a-courtesan is icky, but the fact that it's icky is presented as being kind of the point.
It opens with 70-year-old grandpa Maurice Chevalier singing “Thank Heaven For Little Girls", an ode to 7 year old girls with a sly smile on his face.
I've seen the song used in other venues with the focus on 7 year olds, but in the film, the "Little girls" he's singing about are more Gigi's age, which seems to be sometime in her teens. Not that you're wrong and not that the lyrics can't go either way, though - I think the original writers had a more expansive definition and innocent intent, is all, and while it's hard to remember that sometimes, it's something I bore in mind when I watched.
It introduced me to this other song which met me where I lived - I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore, which Chevalier's character sings after his nephew Gaston comes to him freaking out about some romantic misadventure. Chevalier gives advice and sends him on this way - and then sings this song that's all about, basically, "thank God I'm too old to get my head all twisted about that kind of thing." My roommates lately have been a good bit younger than me, and have often been guys, and sometimes they have taken me aside and nervously asked me advice about some girl trouble. And each time I weigh in and they go on their way - and each time I just sigh and think "thank God I'm not caught up in that bullshit anymore." So this song may have single-handedly saved the whole movie for me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:17 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
Nah, it's still there that they are grooming her to be a courtesan. That's a key part of the narrative - the big pivotal scene towards the end is that the family wants her to be not just a courtesan, but a courtesan to Gaston, the aforementioned most eligible bachelor in Paris. Especially since Gaston already knows Gigi and her grandma, since he's been hanging out with them when he needs a bit of an off-night when he wants to chill out and have a break from High Society.
The vibe you get from the big climactic scene, where Gaston and Gigi have a grown-up night-on-the-town and Gaston now sees Gigi doing all the same little things that other courtesans have been doing with him (nothing pornographic, more things like selecting which cigar he should try or how she holds her champagne or suchlike), it freaks him out - because this is Gigi, the girl he used to chill out with and have killer games of cards with while her grandma fed them both pork stew. So he rejects the family's bid for Gigi to be his courtesan - because he is rejecting the whole courtesan-and-bachelor system, and he instead wants Gigi to be his wife. Which she reciprocates, so yay. Yeah, the whole grooming-to-be-a-courtesan is icky, but the fact that it's icky is presented as being kind of the point.
It opens with 70-year-old grandpa Maurice Chevalier singing “Thank Heaven For Little Girls", an ode to 7 year old girls with a sly smile on his face.
I've seen the song used in other venues with the focus on 7 year olds, but in the film, the "Little girls" he's singing about are more Gigi's age, which seems to be sometime in her teens. Not that you're wrong and not that the lyrics can't go either way, though - I think the original writers had a more expansive definition and innocent intent, is all, and while it's hard to remember that sometimes, it's something I bore in mind when I watched.
It introduced me to this other song which met me where I lived - I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore, which Chevalier's character sings after his nephew Gaston comes to him freaking out about some romantic misadventure. Chevalier gives advice and sends him on this way - and then sings this song that's all about, basically, "thank God I'm too old to get my head all twisted about that kind of thing." My roommates lately have been a good bit younger than me, and have often been guys, and sometimes they have taken me aside and nervously asked me advice about some girl trouble. And each time I weigh in and they go on their way - and each time I just sigh and think "thank God I'm not caught up in that bullshit anymore." So this song may have single-handedly saved the whole movie for me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:17 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
Yeah, the whole grooming-to-be-a-courtesan is icky, but the fact that it's icky is presented as being kind of the point
I haven't watched this movie in ages but as I recall nothing was made explicit. If you understood the whole courtesan thing it was there to see, but it was also very easy to just see it as "they're teaching her how to dress up and flirt and make your man happy," you know, like a more involved version of the stuff a lot of girls continuously get taught, implicitly or explicitly, even today. And then to see Gaston's freakout as being about "they turned my tomboy friend into the stereotypical woman who's just trying to get a man", or "I remember her as a kid, what the hell is this sexy adult, I am so disturbed by my newfound attraction". In other words I think the courtesan part was very much not something a lot of people picked up on, at least in the US, where my guess is that courtesans as a cultural institution were not so familiar to the majority of viewers, while the idea that a woman's whole role in life was to get and keep a man as early as possible, and that tomboys needed to eventually become "young ladies", were very familiar.
I mean, if you know the tropes you know what Gigi's mother being an opera singer in that time period implies. If not, in the 1950s, you just think "ah, she's a busy glamorous professional/flaky artist and that's why she has no time for her kid."
posted by trig at 8:37 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
I haven't watched this movie in ages but as I recall nothing was made explicit. If you understood the whole courtesan thing it was there to see, but it was also very easy to just see it as "they're teaching her how to dress up and flirt and make your man happy," you know, like a more involved version of the stuff a lot of girls continuously get taught, implicitly or explicitly, even today. And then to see Gaston's freakout as being about "they turned my tomboy friend into the stereotypical woman who's just trying to get a man", or "I remember her as a kid, what the hell is this sexy adult, I am so disturbed by my newfound attraction". In other words I think the courtesan part was very much not something a lot of people picked up on, at least in the US, where my guess is that courtesans as a cultural institution were not so familiar to the majority of viewers, while the idea that a woman's whole role in life was to get and keep a man as early as possible, and that tomboys needed to eventually become "young ladies", were very familiar.
I mean, if you know the tropes you know what Gigi's mother being an opera singer in that time period implies. If not, in the 1950s, you just think "ah, she's a busy glamorous professional/flaky artist and that's why she has no time for her kid."
posted by trig at 8:37 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
The real disturbingness of the movie aside, Hermione Gingold and Leslie Caron are great, and I Remember It Well is a nice song.
I also always liked "The world is round - but everything on it is flat."
posted by trig at 8:52 AM on January 11
I also always liked "The world is round - but everything on it is flat."
posted by trig at 8:52 AM on January 11
When I was quite young, my grandparents introduced me to many classic movie musicals. I enjoyed most of them, but I was generally too young to really understand the social context. For instance, it took me until years later to understand why Eliza and Freddy weren’t an appropriate match in My Fair Lady.
But nothing prepared me for the shock of realizing what Gigi was actually about. Having watched it as an adult, I called my grandmother, laughing hysterically, to tease her about trying to steer me toward a lucrative career as a kept woman. (It didn’t work… I married an artist.)
posted by merriment at 2:09 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
But nothing prepared me for the shock of realizing what Gigi was actually about. Having watched it as an adult, I called my grandmother, laughing hysterically, to tease her about trying to steer me toward a lucrative career as a kept woman. (It didn’t work… I married an artist.)
posted by merriment at 2:09 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
It’s funny, I was just thinking about Gigi because I just read The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson where the thing about wiggling the cigars to test them was also mentioned, (I guess for obvious Freudian reasons) as a thing that “loveresses” do.
I loved Gigi as a kid even though I did understand about the courtesan thing, and was very confused about why all her family thought this was a good idea.
It took me a while longer to understand what was going on with the ortolans, though.
posted by exceptinsects at 4:13 PM on January 11
I loved Gigi as a kid even though I did understand about the courtesan thing, and was very confused about why all her family thought this was a good idea.
It took me a while longer to understand what was going on with the ortolans, though.
posted by exceptinsects at 4:13 PM on January 11
There’s a deeper meaning to the ortolans? Oh no … I can guess 😬
posted by bunderful at 6:27 AM on January 12
posted by bunderful at 6:27 AM on January 12
I don't know if the implication was that there was a subtext to the ortolans - more like the average American of today doesn't know the whole lore about how you eat ortolans, and so if suddenly everyone on the screen is throwing napkins over their heads you might wonder "what the hell?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:54 AM on January 12 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:54 AM on January 12 [1 favorite]
I feel like the the crunching kind of got the main point across...
(Here's a quote from that clip whose juxtaposition with the context did not leap out to me as a kid: "Bad table manners, my dear Gigi, have broken up more households than infidelity.")
posted by trig at 11:15 AM on January 12
(Here's a quote from that clip whose juxtaposition with the context did not leap out to me as a kid: "Bad table manners, my dear Gigi, have broken up more households than infidelity.")
posted by trig at 11:15 AM on January 12
Gigi, the film, now needs a lot more context. Gigi, the book published in 1944 by Collette, was seen as very fresh, very daring, very Collette. As a writer she was known for her scandalous subjects, music-hall performers and gender fluid lives; she left her first husband to live with a titled aristocrat who preferred masculine dress and the company of other women. She performed on the stage, married twice more, and became one of France's most beloved writers. She wrote about nature and love and human relations in all types of relationships.
The creation of a family of professional courtesans who would naturally raise their daughters in the family business was scandalous and a deliberate inversion of middle class morality. I like how snooty the great-aunty is about her tremendous success versus Gigi's grandmama, and how they both bemoan the failure of Gigi's mama to succeed. They carefully look after the girl and train her in her role, just as any "respectable" family would, and are shocked when she rebels, just as any family would be if they wanted to marry off their daughter to some rich husband. The time period is from much earlier than the film or novel; the beloved Belle Epoque era of France. Lavish spending on beautiful women was the norm for rich men, so Gaston being more comfortable in an old armchair playing cards was also an inversion of the playboy lifestyle. It's all a deliberate play on the fairy tale romance, but with the fairytale ending--true love-- still in place.
Maurice Chevalier was a very famous music hall performer before he was in films, he created the character of the wry worldly-wise "boulevardier" who sang risque songs while winking at the audience. He's not singing about pre-pubescent children, he's singing about lovely young women learning how to use their beauty to get what they want.
posted by winesong at 1:57 PM on January 12 [6 favorites]
The creation of a family of professional courtesans who would naturally raise their daughters in the family business was scandalous and a deliberate inversion of middle class morality. I like how snooty the great-aunty is about her tremendous success versus Gigi's grandmama, and how they both bemoan the failure of Gigi's mama to succeed. They carefully look after the girl and train her in her role, just as any "respectable" family would, and are shocked when she rebels, just as any family would be if they wanted to marry off their daughter to some rich husband. The time period is from much earlier than the film or novel; the beloved Belle Epoque era of France. Lavish spending on beautiful women was the norm for rich men, so Gaston being more comfortable in an old armchair playing cards was also an inversion of the playboy lifestyle. It's all a deliberate play on the fairy tale romance, but with the fairytale ending--true love-- still in place.
Maurice Chevalier was a very famous music hall performer before he was in films, he created the character of the wry worldly-wise "boulevardier" who sang risque songs while winking at the audience. He's not singing about pre-pubescent children, he's singing about lovely young women learning how to use their beauty to get what they want.
posted by winesong at 1:57 PM on January 12 [6 favorites]
So he rejects the family's bid for Gigi to be his courtesan - because he is rejecting the whole courtesan-and-bachelor system, and he instead wants Gigi to be his wife.
I don't remember that, but now I'm not sure if I'm mixing it up with the other movie - what I remember is he does want her as his exclusive courtesan, and she's the one who says that she doesn't want to be his courtesan because she won't be able to take it when he leaves her.
posted by corb at 3:16 PM on January 13
I don't remember that, but now I'm not sure if I'm mixing it up with the other movie - what I remember is he does want her as his exclusive courtesan, and she's the one who says that she doesn't want to be his courtesan because she won't be able to take it when he leaves her.
posted by corb at 3:16 PM on January 13
what I remember is he does want her as his exclusive courtesan, and she's the one who says that she doesn't want to be his courtesan because she won't be able to take it when he leaves her.
Right, and then after he has a think he proposes because he's realized he can't bear to lose her and doesn't want to leave her anyway.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:39 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
Right, and then after he has a think he proposes because he's realized he can't bear to lose her and doesn't want to leave her anyway.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:39 PM on January 13 [1 favorite]
Heh, I grew up watching this movie (we had a lot of musicals on Betamax) and still kind of adore it, mostly because I want to be Leslie Caron when I grow up. And Gaston's realization that Oh No This is Wrong I Want To Be Playing Cards With Her Not Drinking Champagne is very sweet.
posted by PussKillian at 7:59 AM on January 14
posted by PussKillian at 7:59 AM on January 14
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It’s a musical. The first song is “thank heaven for little girls” sung by a male character over 50.
This has gone from pleasant background watching to WTF watching.
posted by bunderful at 5:17 PM on January 10