Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I've seen every Lerner & Loewe movie musical numerous times on TV over the years, and I used to have at least a couple on VHS (Paint Your Wagon and Camelot -- and I had all the soundtracks on vinyl, of course!), but I still gave in to the temptation to record Gigi off of TCM Sunday afternoon and re-watch it, just for the sake of nostalgia.

And you know what? I noticed something this time that I'd never seen before.

Of course, that's not so surprising, considering that the last time I watched that movie I was probably a teenager (and also undoubtedly watching it with commercial interruptions and without letterboxing to preserve the integrity of the director's vision).

But I could've sworn that I'd seen and grasped and parsed every ounce of character and meaning from that movie, back then. Heck, I'd even bought The Collette Omnibus from one of my book clubs back in the late 70's, just so I could read the novel on which the non-musical stage play and the musical film were based (which was far more acerbic and unflattering to the 'hero' than I was expecting!).

But, wonder of wonders, it turns out that you see things in your 40's that you completely miss in your teens. (I know! I'm telling myself "Duh!" even now.) And . . . there's a slight possibility that all those doctoral seminars on psychology in my mid-30's weren't entirely wasted, either.

When I was a kid, I was focused on the cuteness of Louis Jourdan (who, like Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins and Richard Harris as King Arthur, did more speaking than singing in his songs) and on the titillatingly transgressive idea of the schoolgirl as romantic interest to the desirable older man (being myself a socially backward schoolgirl, of course, when I first became obsessed with memorizing musicals as a way to bring the order of music and rhyme scheme to the chaos of emotions around me).

But re-watching the film on Sunday evening, I was struck by the fact that -- though several of the key songs seemed to suggest that the coming of age of schoolgirl Gigi was a major thread (see the lyrics from the male observer's perspective in "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "Gigi", as well as Gigi's own 'childish' lyrics in numbers like "[I Don't Understand] The Parisians" and "The Night They Invented Champagne" and her 'mature' lyrics in "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight") -- the movie was really all about the male lead Gaston's belated 'growing up'.

Or at least that's what I took away from it this time. Maybe I was too hung up on my own issues to see that during previous viewings, or maybe it's mostly contained in sub-text through Jourdan's portrayal of the character. But when I went back and re-watched certain scenes before deleting the film from my DVR this time, the irony seemed to become ever more plain: it's not Gaston's view (and everyone else's view) of Gigi that has to change as she grows up, but rather Gaston's view of himself that reluctantly changes, eventually coming around to a more mature and more 'real' approach to living life.

Almost from the beginning of the film Gaston has two competing 'mirrors' or exterior viewpoints through which he tries to find meaning, self-esteem, and an escape from the unending boredom of his own life: 1) his playboy uncle Honore, and 2) the schoolgirl Gigi, grand-daughter of Mme. Alvarez, the retired courtesan whose modest apartment has somehow become his refuge from the world's expectations.

No matter how charming Maurice Chevalier may be in his role of the good-humored hedonist Honore, and no matter how convincingly he sings his reflections upon how far he's come from his youthful playboy days (reluctantly becoming aware of the passing of time and lost chances for making a real connection with a woman who might've genuinely loved him in his duet with Mme. Alvarez, "I Remember It Well", and later celebrating the diminished expectations of oneself and others that come with old age in his solo, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore"), I couldn't help but notice -- this time around -- that the genial old guy seems to remain a self-centered 'consumer' of people and pleasures to the end. No matter how much he's become aware of the passage of time, in his approach to relationships with other people he remains a teenaged boy at heart.

Yes, it's possible that by the end of the film he's self-consciously parodying his own hedonistic philosophy in hopes of laying some kind of 'reverse psychology' on his selfish nephew and giving him the chance to see how immature and narrow Gaston's 'love' for Gigi really is. That's what I hoped Honore was doing, at least, when I watched this movie in my youth, since I wasn't comfortable with the idea of a character being both likable and reprehensibly amoral and irresponsible. But this time around . . . well, I guess I'm old enough to accept the fact that Honore can be well-intentioned (according to his own point of view) and an old reprobate who really doesn't see anything wrong with 'renting' the affections and companionship of one very young woman after another.

Meanwhile, Gigi -- the supposedly 'immature' character -- actually seems to offer the most life-affirming and realistic viewpoint of any of the characters on screen. She's honest in her emotions, in both her likes and dislikes, and seems to be pretty comfortable in her own skin (willing to look foolish in the eyes of the polite world if she's enjoying herself, and certainly willing to call Gaston on his b.s. now and then), in spite of the constant attempts of others to try to transform her into an idealized vision of social graces and emotional artifice.

During the climactic scene at Maxim's, Gaston finally recognizes the disconnect -- the dissonance -- between the reality of Gigi as a real person, someone he'd known and liked long before she started dressing in grown-up clothes and disturbing his hormonal equilibrium, on the one hand, and the generic and artificial role he was insisting that she play.

When I was a youngster myself, I remember thinking that Gaston's discontent during that scene was primarily an indication of boredom, as Gigi began to behave just as every other mistress was expected to behave. The way I saw it then, Gaston's dragging her out of Maxim's and home to her grandmother without explanation meant that she was being blamed for failing to entertain him or interest him, once she'd assumed the adult role everyone wanted her to play. If you're a kid and someone you care about gets angry or treats you badly, it must be your fault, right? You must've done something wrong, and you wrack your brains trying to figure out what it was. If it wasn't anything you did, the only alternative is that it's who you are that is in some way objectionable and inadequate.

Then, when Gaston eventually returns to the apartment and asks for Gigi's hand in marriage, I remember that it felt like a cheat, somehow, or a set-up for future failure. Even though she couldn't keep the boredom at bay as a mistress, maybe the novelty of marriage would somehow give Gaston the new sensations he'd been seeking? And if not, then it would still be Gigi's fault but at least she wouldn't be thrown out into the street when she no longer provided enough novelty to keep him interested. Was THAT supposed to be the happy ending to a musical romance? Why do I suddenly not feel so good, then?

But this time, I recognized that it was the very fact that Gigi -- beautifully dressed and coiffed and displaying all the poise and good manners her Aunt Alicia had tried to instill in her -- was also STILL HERSELF, underneath and in between the artificial moments and manners, that made Gaston start to feel more than a little sick, himself, at Maxim's. Seeing real Gigi in the midst of that unbelievably shallow social scene, and being unable to forget that she was a real person and not just a toy he'd purchased and had a right to expect constant attention and entertainment from . . . THAT'S what caused him to feel shame at last, so that he first can't stand the sight of her holding his gift of an expensive emerald bracelet and sends her to the ladies to put it on, and then (after a congratulatory visit from Uncle Honore, during which he sees his own unworthy attitudes magnified and reflected back to him, and seems to find the view unbearable) can't tolerate the idea of continuing their evening out one second longer.

Imagine a lightbulb flashing over my rather dim head at that moment, as I watched that well-remembered film and realized, "It's nothing to do with what she's done wrong or right, or whether she's 'good enough' in the role she's expected to play! It's HIM! He's the one with the problem, the one who suddenly wakes up and becomes aware of the fact that he's bored most of the time because he's living a shallow and inauthentic life, disconnected from himself, rather than because the world and its people fail to provide him with the interest and amusement he has a right to expect."

It's not discontent with Gigi -- who she is or what she's done -- that sends Gaston out into the night, in a wordless reprise of his earlier musical ruminations during the song, "Gigi" (during which -- to put it baldly -- he'd reflected only on Gigi as the object of his gaze, and the idea that she might now actually qualify as a desirable consumer product). Rather, it's his SELF that he needs to reevaluate and look at from a new and more honest perspective. Perhaps that's why he's only seen as a dark silhouette during most of that interlude.

When he's come to terms (for the moment, at least) with the unpleasant aspects of his character that suddenly became crystal clear to him at Maxim's and is ready to make a real change -- and to once again be seen by the person who'd loved him for himself (as well as for his candy and motor-car rides!) all along, THAT's when he returns to the Alvarez apartment in order to respectfully ask to continue their relationship on a less artificial and socially demeaning basis. Maybe that's why he doesn't dare look at Gigi until he's said his piece -- he doesn't want to see himself reflected in her eyes until he's started to become the better person she used to think he was.

And speaking of mirrors, isn't it strange to look in an old familiar one -- like an often-watched movie, or a novel you've re-read many times over -- and realize that you might finally be ready to leave behind some of your own childish issues (once so prominently displayed there) and see something a little more substantial, in its place?