A sex trafficking bill is languishing in Congress.
But Hollywood is celebrating the 25th anniversary of “Pretty Woman,” a movie about a prostitute.
NBC’s Today show even hosted an on-air reunion to celebrate the “movie magic” of the film, in which Richard Gere falls for Julia Roberts, the woman he hires to be his escort. But not everybody is celebrating.
Nina Burleigh wrote a piece for Newsweek pointing out that the film has only made the work of anti-trafficking activists harder, activists who are working to reframe prostitutes as victims and “sex buyers” as criminals.
The airy and comical portrayal of prostitution, she writes, is a “fantasy,” one that is threatening to make a comeback.
Donna Gavin, the head of the Boston Police Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, wrote a piece for the Boston Globe, decrying the celebration of a film that seems to celebrate the “exploitation caused by those who buy others’ bodies for sex.”
The headline sums it up: “‘Pretty Woman’ Normalizes Something that Destroys Lives.”
To be sure, there are plenty who consider the movie to be fairy tale material.
The film advertises itself as a “modern update on Cinderella,” and the first commenter on its IMDB page refers to it gushingly as “like a Cinderella story for adults.”
The timing of the 25-year anniversary with the first major modern remake of the Disney movie “Cinderella” is all the more strange.
Indeed, toward the end of “Pretty Woman,” one of Roberts’ prostitute friends whose fate is not so lucky memorably compares Roberts’ story to “Cinder-[expletive]-ella.”
“Pretty Woman” is no Cinderella story, but I don’t think it’s quite as terrible as its critics deem it.
For starters, Roberts does not seem thrilled to be a prostitute. She does not call it an empowering choice; it’s clear she is doing it out of financial necessity.
And Richard Gere is not exactly a gentleman. He is lonely and egotistical, no doubt qualities found in those who go looking for satisfaction in red light districts.
Both characters are redeemed when they move away from an objectifying relationship and toward love and mutual respect.
But actually, Gere does not go looking for a prostitute. He hires Roberts only after an exchange in which he is looking for directions, and she thinks he is looking for sex.
He finds her witty and funny, and wants her company. And though he does eventually hire her as an escort, his is a story of slow redemption.
He winds up punching his best friend when he tries to treat Roberts like anything less than a lady. He falls in love with her, and he does in fact rescue her from a world where no woman belongs.
She in turn, humanizes him. He backs off of a hostile corporate takeover and instead decides to save a dying family business, much due to her influence.
In the end, he woos her in a traditional fashion, with roses beneath her balcony in a play on “Romeo and Juliet.”
So, yes, we should be leery of any Hollywood portrayal of prostitution as something funny or glamorous or really as anything other than a horrible, miserable existence.
But whether “Pretty Woman” does that is a different story.
Both characters are redeemed when they move away from an objectifying relationship and toward love and mutual respect.
In the end, it is the Shakespearean concept of love and romance that wins the day.
It’s patronizing that Roberts is rescued from sexual exploitation by a rich man.
But that rich man has to transform himself to win her heart. They rescue each other. It’s not a fairy tale. But it’s not pro-prostitution propaganda either.