Notes on My Fair Lady

I watched My Fair Lady for the first time ever today. It's an interesting concept: not just that low-born people can be remade, but that our language limits what we can become. At the beginning of the movie, it was Eliza's "English that will keep her in the gutter" that made selling flowers on the street one of her only options. As she was taught to speak more properly, she became a lady.

It reminded me of something I read years ago in an article for Sociology. Something about the way we dress affects how people treat us and how we feel about ourselves. That's part of why a lot of places have uniforms or insist on professional attire. Interesting. You need to dress/act the part to be able to fill a part.

As a similar point, I really liked what Eliza said at the end of My Fair Lady:
"The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated." The way we treat people defines who they are. We form people's identity in our interactions with them.