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The 1990s and early 2000s were a minefield of iconic rom-coms, filling the Hollywood landscape withNotting Hill-inspired avenues and multiple iterations of meet-cute boy-meets-girl stories. Among the lot,Pretty Womanstands out as a particularly divisive film for its titular subject and the risqué storyline that had to be redacted for a more family-friendly demography.
But despite the troubled pre-production and the eventual legacy upheld by the movie decades down the line,Pretty Womanhas never once faltered in the fans’s minds. The Julia Roberts and Richard Gere rom-com still exists as an iconic product of a generation that relished the thought of love overcoming class and social barriers and prevailing against all odds.
Pretty WomanFan Gets an Earful from Richard Gere
AsPretty Womanturns 34, fans all over the world commit themselves to rewatching the 1990 classic once more, hopping back on board the train of nostalgia that colors the era. However, no amount of proofreading of the cultural narrative can edit out the fact thatPretty Womanfeatured an inherently problematic arc at the heart of the story.
Julia Roberts‘ prostitute falls for a wealthy businessman who attempts to buy her time and companionship. The entire premise of the relationship that is founded between them later in the story is based on an economic exchange. The overpowering message of love-overcomes-all fails to hide the ethically challenging storyline being promoted throughPretty Woman‘s central plot.
No Happy Ending For Julia Roberts: Pretty Woman’s Original Ending Would’ve Given Us Lifetime Trauma
In an fghvbhhinterviewwith the iconicRichard Gere, aColliderjournalist came under fire for glorifying the movie despite the problematic message it projects on viewers of impressionable age. After confessing how she loved the movie after watching it as a 5 or 6-year-old kid, Gere immediately rebukes her claiming,“You were too young! It was about a hooker!”
The Problematic Impact ofPretty Woman
In a world filled with struggle, despair, and daily hardships, cinema provides the only escape from reality. It is hardly a surprise that genres like fantasy and rom-coms never fail to perform well at the box office as both take the viewers to the far reaches of our imagination and make the impossible happen even when all hope may seem lost.
However, such escapist fantasies should only be limited to the realm of film and television instead of being pandered to children who are yet to comprehend the nuances of societal interactions. As it happens, the rom-com status ofPretty Womanhas made the film accessible to audiences of all demography, aged seven to seventy.
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As such, even pre-adolescent children had taken full advantage of the film’s overarching pop culture favoritism by watching and rewatching the Julia Roberts classic after it premiered. As the film celebrates its 34th anniversary, grown-ups now reflect back on their yesteryears and find the film’s stalwart presence throughout their childhood a disturbing issue to ponder over.
Pretty Womanis streaming on Prime Video.
Diya Majumdar
Senior Writer
Articles Published :2409
Diya Majumdar is a Senior Content Writer at FandomWire with over 2000 published articles on the website. Since 2022, she has been working as an entertainment journalist with a special focus on films and pop culture.Among the countless genres and themes of Hollywood, the ones that particularly favor Diya’s tastes include Game of Thrones, DC, and well-aged thrillers and classics.
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Julia RobertsPretty WomanRichard Gere
