This week I have been watching quite a few old Hepburn films on the internet, including one of my favorite films of all time My Fair Lady. When George Bernard Shaw wrote the play
Pygmalion (which MFL is based around) in 1913, he loosely stole this idea of mixed fashions and etiquette on the original Greek Myth of Pygmalion. The Pygmalion idea has been spread out through a number of different cultural references we are familiar with today such as
Pinocchio and in the last scene of Shakespeare's
The Winter's Tale. Throughout the middle ages Pygmalion was the pinnacle of idolatry, a pure of example of what the different classes
should look up to. This is the core reason why My Fair Lady is my immediate favourite film of all time, it sublimely shows, in an intrinsic light, the way in which we have to try and change ourselves to suit society.
Daniel.
So, this photograph of Leanne Briggs is my own "Pygmalion". I have made her into a woman of high status and class, dressing her in such a way, but I have purposely left remnants of her real attitude towards social class. This has been executed by her "showing some leg", the label still showing just above the heel and especially the contrasting background she is set in (this imitates the metaphorical background that is set in her genuine attitude towards the higher status). Though I state all of this, Leanne is actually a very down to earth friend of mine, and any imposed social classes I just mentioned are not in any way related to her actual views on society and are merely my description of what I was trying to portray. Centuries of Idolatry in my own portrayal of society. Song listening to right now:
Steve Hackett - Horizons
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