The Oldest Profession.

One of my favorite movies is Pretty Woman, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. What’s not to like? The movie is a modern day Cinderella story, set in Hollywood, where “everybody’s got a dream,” and is replete with beautiful clothes, cars, and five-star entertainment--polo, and the San Francisco opera, attended by private jet.

The story begins when a lost tycoon, Edward, stops to ask directions of a streetwalker on Hollywood Boulevard. The streetwalker, Vivian, shows him by driving him there in the fancy sports car he has borrowed from his lawyer and does not know how to drive because, as he tells Vivian, his first car "was a limousine."

Edward hires Vivian to be his escort for the week, and the two fall in love--natch. In fact, just about everyone in the movie--and in the theatre audience--falls for Vivian as she “cleans up” and learns to act like a lady. In a refreshing twist, as Edward climbs the fire escape to rescue his lady from the tower of her barely-scraping-by-lifestyle, she “rescues him right back” from his shallow, meaningless existence.

Pretty Woman is a delightful romantic comedy, but I think there is a deeper discussion taking place in the movie. The love story provides an examination of the nature of prostitution. While Vivian is the obvious prostitute, Edward, and his lawyer, are the less obvious--cloaked in their financial success and upper-class trappings.

A prostitute, according to the Oxford American dictionary, is "a person who misuses their talents or who sacrifices their self-respect for the sake of personal or financial gain." Prostitution, then, involves “put[ting] [oneself or one's talents] to an unworthy or corrupt use or purpose for the sake of personal or financial gain.” To prostitute is to “betray, demean, devalue or cheapen [one’s principles].”

As Vivian learns, Edward has made his untold wealth buying companies in financial trouble, and reselling them in “parts.” He and his lawyer have been partners for years and are not above playing dirty to get what they want. “So you don’t build anything?” Vivian responds, uncomfortable with the nature of his business.

Edward himself confirms the commonality of their businesses. “We are such similar creatures, you and I,” he tells Vivian, “we both screw people for money.”

Vivian reveals a newfound understanding of her own as she refuses Edward’s offer of financial support. “That’s just geography,” she replies, when he argues that it will get her off the streets.

In the end, they both change their ways--Edward agrees to build ships with the guy he’s been trying to ruin, and Vivian leaves the boulevard for Edward’s world.

I find it ironic that society admires one kind of prostitution, and frowns on the other. I am reminded of the Jackson Browne lyric, “It’s who you look like, not who you are.” What a shame. I suspect much honest talent flies under the radar--and much falsity is taken for true gold.