I watched ‘Pretty Woman’ recently, it’s a movie from 1990. Richard Gere plays a businessman, Edward Lewis, who meets a prostitute, Vivian Ward, played by Julia Roberts. They spend some days together and fall in love. Yes, it doesn’t seem interesting. But it was very funny and I liked it. My children liked it too. We all laughted everytime Vivian didn’t know how to behave herself in that environment. I first thought it would be as boring as Moulin Rouge. But this is a much better movie.
The way Vivian doesn’t know how to behave herself, reminds me of not knowing how to behave sometimes in non-Pakistani society. I remember dining at a non-Pakistani friends house once. Her mother had cooked something, there were just a simple fork and a knive we had to use. But I wasn’t sure how to use it! At home, we mostly ate roti with our bare hands. Sometimes my mother cooked rice, and then we used a spoon. In those days, we weren’t really used to eating with knive and fork. I still have an Aunty who eats chawal with her fingers. Nowadays even in my parents house, everyones habits are changed a bit. But when I was still growing up, I was more used to eating roti with my hands, only occasionally using a spoon when we would eat rice. It was difficult for me to eat with knive and fork, but now I’m ok with that. In the movie Vivian is in a restaurant and since it’s a very chique restaurant, there are different forks for everything, she doesn’t exactly know which is which. That was very funny and it reminded me of my own problems when I was with non-Pakistani friends sometimes!
Or clothes, when I started to wear more western clothes, first I wasn’t sure what was normal, what would be fine for me. Until then, I had always worn shalwar kameez, even in school where other kids used to make fun of my shalwar kameez. I wanted to be comfortable in non-Pakistani culture, so I stopped wearing shalwar kameez. My first clothes weren’t always an excellent choice. In the movie, Vivian doesn’t know how to dress in that new environment she’s in.
This movie is a reminder of how it sometimes is for people when they are in an unknown environment. To me the non-Pakistani environment was mysterious and exciting, it was unknown and there seemed to be less problems than in our own Pakistani environment. But there are problems in every culture actually.
Despite it’s topic, there are just a few inappropriate scenes. Here it’s a prostitute in the chique environment of a wealthy businessman, but it could be applied to foreigners in a different country, or people living in two cultures, at home the culture of their parents native country, outside of home, the culture of the country they are growing up in.
I like this movie a lot. Don’t let the topic stop you from watching it. It’s definetely worth your time and there really aren’t that many inappropriate scenes. For anyone who wants to see the movie, here is a link of YouTube, where you can watch it first to decide if it’s worth it or not (the movie is in different parts):
(is this link allowed? if not, then go to YouTube, type ‘pretty woman’ and you’ll find all the movie parts)
