My Fair Lady, a musical version of George Bernard Shaw's 1913 Pygmalion, was written by Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe in 1956 and filmed in 1964 by George Cukor. Pygmalion, in my opinion is a mch better representation of the story of a dirty flower girl who is taken in by a member of high-class society in order to make her a refined lady.

     Mr. Higgins (Rex Harrison) takes in our leading lady (Audrey Hepburn) and makes it his goal to turn this dirty rat of a girl into a glamorous princess. This sounds like an easy story to tell, right? Well, in this movie the film makers feel the need to expose the viewer to the events that take place through several acts and displays of erratic behavior that I will argue are signs of insanity.

     When a rather crucial turn of events, good or bad, happens, what is a normal reaction? Emotions such as fear, sadness, joy, arousal, despair, and several other states of being are exhibited, right? Well let us say that someone is so mad at someone that he or she start running rampant through the streets, singing and dancing along the way, twirling on streetlight poles as if he or she were in a circus. What emotion or mental (or even physical) state of being would he or she be expressing: confusion--psychological confusion? When someone is confused, he or she can lose any sense of rational thought. If enough pressure is put on this individual, he or she might snap. Now we are dealing with a clinically insane individual. If Fred Astaire (I know he was not in My Fair Lady, but still...) were singing and dancing in the streets today, he would most likely be locked away... or at least arrested for possible public intoxication.

     So, in closing, My Fair Lady is yet another musical set to the tune of outright lunacy. This, along with our "heroine" constantly saying, "I'm a good girl, I am" over and over again, makes it rather trying to accept. Speaking of that, I must insist that the fact that she keeps reinstating this fact leads me to believe that she is trying to conceal the fact that she is actually a naughty, naughty mischievous girl with possible nymphomaniacal tendencies. But that is another story entirely.