Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Pretty Woman: The Film World as Dream

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Hermeneutics of the Film World

  • 528 Accesses

Abstract

The first words of the person who welcomes us to Hollywood is already a clear indication of the dreamlike atmosphere that we will encounter in Pretty Woman (Marshall 1990): ‘Welcome to Hollywood! Everybody comes to Hollywood got a dream. What’s your dream?’ It is only the prelude to the romance that develops between the two protagonists Vivian Ward and Edward Lewis within a film world where it seems possible to satisfy desires and actually make dreams come true. What emerges is the representation of a new American dream, which is perhaps a corny, second-hand fairy tale, but which, judging by the film’s enduring popularity, seems perfectly able to capture filmgoers’ imagination. A Ricœurian hermeneutics working on the film world of Pretty Woman uncovers three major symbolic keys of interpretation—the romcom, Cinderella and the Pygmalion myth—which together give expression to a problematic and contradictory philosophy.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • American Gigolo. 1980. Directed by Paul Schrader. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baudelaire, Charles. 2009. The Eyes of the Poor. InParis Spleen: Little Poems in Prose, trans. Keith, Waldrop. 51–52. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benson, Sheila. 1990. ‘Pretty Woman’: Roberts’ Legs, a Cold Heart. Los Angeles Times, Mar 23, http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-23/entertainment/ca-549_1_pretty-woman.

  • Big Business. 1988. Directed by Jim Abrahams. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Box Office Mojo. 1990 Domestic Grosses. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1990&p=.htm.

  • Bower, Stephanie. 1995. The Common Commercial Flesh of Women: Representations of Prostitution in Turn-of-the-Century American Literature, PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.

    Google Scholar 

  • Britton, Andrew. 1986. Blissing Out: The Politics of Reaganite Entertainment. Movie 31/32 (Winter): 1–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brunsdon, Charlotte. 1997. Screen Tastes: Soap Opera to Satellite Dishes. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caputi, Jane. 2004. Sleeping with the Enemy as Pretty Woman Part II?. In Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power, and Popular Culture, 37–50. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Originally published as “Sleeping with the Enemy as Pretty Woman Part II?” Journal of Popular Film and Television 19 (1) (Spring 1991): 2–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charade. 1963. Directed by Stanley Donen 1963. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cinderella. 1950. Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dalla, Rochelle L. 2000. Exposing the ‘Pretty Woman’ Myth: A Qualitative Examination of the Lives of Female Streetwalking Prostitutes. The Journal of Sex Research. 37 (4): 344–353.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dances with Wolves. 1990. Directed by Kevin Costner. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, Jude and Carol R. Smith. 2000. Gender, Ethnicity, and Sexuality in Contemporary American Film. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers (first published, Edinburgh: Keele University Press, 1997).

    Google Scholar 

  • Doherty, Thomas. 1990. Pretty Woman. Cinéaste 18 (1): 40–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dowling, Colette. 1981. The Cinderella Complex: Women’s Hidden Fear of Independence. New York: Summit Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Earls, Christopher M., and Hélène David. 1990. Early Family and Sexual Experiences of Male and Female Prostitutes. Canada’s Mental Health 38 (4): 7–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ebert, Roger. 1990. ‘Pretty’ Good. New York Daily News, Mar 23, http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/pretty-woman-pretty-good-1990-review-article-1.2573569.

  • Erbland, Kate. 2015. The True Story of Pretty Woman’s Original Dark Ending. Vanity Fair, Mar 23, http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/03/pretty-woman-original-ending.

  • Field, Sally. 1991. What Do Women Want?: Lights, Cameras, a Piece of the Action. People, Mar 27, http://people.com/archive/what-do-women-want-lights-cameras-a-piece-of-the-action/.

  • Fisher, Jerilyn, and Ellen S. Silber. 1998. Fairy Tales, Feminist Theory, and the Lives of Women and Girls. In Analyzing the Different Voice: Feminist Psychological Theory and Literary Texts, ed. Jerilyn Fisher, and Ellen S. Silber, 67–95. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flowers, Ronald Barri. 1998. The Prostitution of Women and Girls. Jefferson: McFarland.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Prostitution in the Digital Age: Selling Sex from the Suite to the Street. Santa Barbara: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, Michel. 1986. Of Other Spaces. Diacritics 16 (1): 22–27, trans. Jay Miskowiec.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garrett, Roberta. 2007. Postmodern Chick Flicks: The Return of the Woman’s Film. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ghost. 1990. Directed by Jerry Zucker. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gostin, Nicki. 2012. Garry Marshall On The Chemistry On The ‘Pretty Woman’ Set And His Wish For Lindsay Lohan. HuffPost, May 3, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/garry-marshall-book_n_1475628.html?utm_hp_ref=books&ir=Books.

  • Greenberg, Harvey Roy. 1991. Rescrewed: Pretty Woman’s Co-opted Feminism. Journal of Popular Film and Television 19 (1): 9–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Groeppel-Klein, Andrea, Anja Domke, and Benedikt Bartmann. 2006. Pretty Woman Or Erin Brockovich? Unconscious and Conscious Reactions to Commercials and Movies Shaped By Fairy Tale Archetpyes—Results From Two Experimental Studies. In Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 33, ed. Connie Pechmann, and Linda Price, 163–174. Duluth: Association for Consumer Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, David. 1973. Social Justice and the City. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. Space as a Key Word. Paper for Marx and Philosophy Conference, 29 May 2004, Institute of Education, London. Published in Spaces of Neoliberalization: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development. München: Franz Steiner Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2006. Spaces of Global Capitalism. New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Home Alone. 1990. Directed by Chris Columbus. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howe, Desson. 1990. Pretty Woman. The Washington Post, Mar 23, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/prettywomanrhowe_a0b25d.htm.

  • I Love Lucy. First broadcast 15 October 1951 by CBS. Directed by Marc Daniels et al. and written by Jess OppenHeimer et al.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelley, Karol. 1994. A Modern Cinderella. Journal of American Culture 17 (1): 87–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kempley, Rita. 1990. Pretty Woman. The Washington Post, Mar 23, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/prettywomanrkempley_a0a005.htm.

  • Kirby, Iona, and Jennifer Pearson. 2015. Julia Roberts greets Richard Gere with kiss on the lips as Pretty Woman cast reunites after 25 years… and reveal film was meant to be a dark tale about drugs. Mail Online, Mar 24, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3009664/Julia-Roberts-greets-Richard-Gere-kiss-lips-Pretty-Woman-cast-reunites-25-years-reveal-film-meant-dark-tale-drugs.html.

  • Lauter, Estella, and Carol Rupprecht (eds.). 1985. Feminist Archetypal Theory: Interdisciplinary Re-vision of Jungian Thought. Knoxville: University Tennessee Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Cambridge: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manhattan. 1979. Directed by Woody Allen. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maslin, Janet. 1990. High-Rolling Boy Meets Streetwalking Girl. The New York Times, Mar 23, http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/23/movies/review-film-high-rolling-boy-meets-streetwalking-girl.html.

  • Mei, Huang. 1990. Transforming the Cinderella Dream: From Frances Burney to Charlotte Bronte. London: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Merkin, Daphne. 1990. Prince Charming Comes Back. The New York Times, July 15, http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/15/magazine/hers-prince-charming-comes-back.html.

  • Moonstruck. 1987. Directed by Norman Jewison. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, Terence Patrick. 2015. From Fairy Tale to Film Screenplay: Working with Plot Genotypes. London: Palgrave McMillan Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • My Fair Lady. 1964. Directed by George Cukor. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Napoleoni, Loretta. 2008. Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality. New York: Seven Stories Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O'Connell Davidson, Julia. 1998. Prostitution, Power and Freedom. Malden: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orbison, Roy. 1964. Oh, Pretty Woman. By Roy Orbison and Bill Dees. Monument Records.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pygmalion. 1938. Directed by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pretty Woman. 1990. Directed by Garry Marshall. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radner, Hilary. 2011. Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks, and Consumer Culture. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1993. Pretty is as Pretty Does: Free Enterprise and the Marriage Plot. In Film Theory Goes to the Movies: Cultural Analysis of Contemporary Film, ed. Jim Collins, Ava Preacher Collins, and Hilary Radner, pp. 56–76. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenbaum, Jonathan. 1990. Meat, John, Dough. Chicago Reader, July 12, http://www.chicagoreader.com/ chicago/meat-john-dough/Content?oid = 875998.

  • Rowe, Kathleen. 1995. The Unruly Woman: Gender and the Genres of Laughter. Austin: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruti, Mari. 2016. Feminist Film Theory and Pretty Woman. New York: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, George Bernard. 1912. Pygmalion. Play in five acts. London (first presented on stage 1913).

    Google Scholar 

  • Siegler, Mara. 2017. ‘Pretty Woman’ was almost a completely different movie. Page Six, Mar 4, http://pagesix.com/2017/03/04/pretty-woman-was-almost-a-completely-different-movie/.

  • Sleeping with the Enemy. 1991. Directed by Joseph Ruben. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smedley, Nick. 2014. The Roots of Modern Hollywood: The Persistence of Values in American Cinema, from the New Deal to the Present. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Claude J., Jr. 1997. Bodies and Minds for Sale: Prostitution in Pretty Woman and Indecent Proposal. Studies in Popular Culture 19 (3): 91–99.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soja, Edward W. 1980. The Socio-Spatial Dialectic. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70 (2): 207–225.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Malden: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010. Seeking Spatial Justice. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spada, James. 2004. Julia: Her Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Surplus: Terrorized into Being Consumers. 2003. Directed by Erik Gandini. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Fabulous Baker Boys. 1989. Directed by Steve Kloves. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • The King of Comedy. 1982. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thelma & Louise. 1991. Directed by Ridley Scott. Film.

    Google Scholar 

  • Verdi, Giuseppe. 1853. La Traviata. Opera in three acts, book by Francesco Maria Piave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wartenberg, Thomas E. 2000. Shopping Esprit: Pretty Woman’s Deflection of Social Criticism. In Hollywood Goes Shopping, ed. David Desser, and Garth S. Jowett, 309–329. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, Robin. 1985. 80s Hollywood: Dominant Tendencies. CineAction! (Spring): 2–5.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Turin, Torino, Italy

    Alberto Baracco

Authors
  1. Alberto Baracco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alberto Baracco .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Baracco, A. (2017). Pretty Woman: The Film World as Dream. In: Hermeneutics of the Film World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65400-3_9

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation