As a Fairy Tale Character in My Fair Lady
George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion has many adaptations and it has gone from stage to screen. Specially embodies Warner Brothers’ My Fair Lady (1964). Comparing the theatre version to the film adaptation, the protagonist Eliza Doolittle’s story get more and more like, a realistic fairy tale character, Cinderella. Paul Bauschatz states, My Fair Lady (1964) “offers a fairy tale story bound to please most viewers, and it retains its potential for compelling visual display” (17). Nonetheless, the makeover films lessen the conflict of social class and women’s inequality in the original theatre version and stress magnificent scenes and costumes to attract audiences, which make Eliza lose herself and become a kind of Cinderella.
First of all, Pygmalion and My Fair Lady (1964), and Cinderella’s have similar plots because Eliza and Cinderella have similar life experience. They have poor life situations and stay in the lower class in the society. Eliza is a street flower seller and a working-class. Eliza’s mother is dead and her father does not care about her. Cinderella, after her father’s death, becomes a maid for her stepmother and her stepsisters. She does the housekeeping, the laundry and the cooking. They lack family members’ care but they are very feisty and positive.
In addition, they have dream and do some changes for their dream by accepting other’s help. Eliza is very dignified and strongly resents being looked down upon for her