The Unanswerable Question
“When we do gender, then, we express our views about what we believe is ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ for a member of our sex” (Johnson as cited in Gamble & Gamble, 2003, p. 4).
In the musical film My Fair Lady (based on the stage version which is based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw), the main character Professor Henry Higgins begs the question, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” in his song, “A Hymn to Him.” Higgins’s proclamations demonstrates not only the typical, desired characteristics of men in nineteenth-century England, but highlights how women do not share those characteristics and are therefore less desirable. He even asks his dear (male) friend, Colonel Pickering, “Why can’t a woman be more like you?” This pokes fun at the the concept that people usually relate better to someone of the same sex, and sometimes even prefer the companionship of someone of the same sex compared to someone of the opposite sex (RE: radical lesbian feminists). Higgins’s ode to masculinity is prompted by an argument he has had with his pupil and ward, Eliza Doolittle. His argument with her causes him to take out his frustration on her entire sex.
Gamble and Gamble (2003) would tell Higgins that the answers to his questions are not at all simple, “since how you respond to them also suggests a great deal about your cultural background, values, and orientation toward the sexes” (p. 7). Shaw loved to write about social class and gender and achieves this through Higgins’s character. It is interesting how many of Higgins’s views and perceptions are still echoed throughout contemporary society today. Gender, it seems, transcends geography and generations.
REFERENCES:
BravoDivine. (2009, January 25). “Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?” Rex Harrison [Video File]. Video posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doz5w2W-jAY
Gamble, T. K., & Gamble, M. W. (2003). The Gender Communication Connection. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Tags: comm33009, do gender, musical, My Fair Lady
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