Lecture and Video Clips 
for Ideology

Please take this link to view the Ideology Lecture

The links below should be able to be opened in Windows Media Player.

Pretty Woman as a retelling of  "Cinderella"

 Consider: 

Even though Vivian initially appears to be lacking in class and couth and wealth, her fairy godmother (or godfather, in this case) helps her to look better and make it to the ball (or opera)--where her true worth is ascertained--and to overcome her evil stepsisters, so that eventually the rich prince rescues her from poverty (and the bad guy).

The film plays with a Romeo and Juliet motif, as well, as balcony scenes, Shakespeare's visual symbol of true love, proliferate: clip 1, clip 2, clip 3.  

Notice, too, that the film basically accepts traditional gender roles.  Although Vivian "saves" Richard "back" at the end, she saves him in the traditional "women are men's moral compass" way.  She saves him emotionally and morally, but she does not really involve herself with his business professionally, only personally. In turn, he rescues her financially, the accepted male way.  Indeed, he seems to need to approve her wardrobe and her manners.

There is an acceptance of capitalist values inherent in the film, too.  While the film does maintain that buying a business to "break it into pieces" is wrong, owning companies and being rich is clearly linked to being a "better" person.  Vivian is rewarded with monetary gain for her "good" behavior, while the responsibility for all the businesses "broken into pieces" is easily transferred to Stuckey at the end as Edward has his philosophical "saving" conversion.  Edward can keep his profits of the "bad" business, now secure in the knowledge that Stuckey was actually the one who "loved" the "kill."