My Fair Lady

[schneefink]

Yesterday I watched "My Fair Lady" at the Volksoper. I like the songs, and I like how they used Viennese dialect. The production was good, but I forgot how much I hate the ending. We just got multiple scenes showing why Eliza doesn't want to go back to Higgins because he doesn't respect her, and they were good scenes! I especially liked the one with Higgins' mother. ("If I were you, my boy, I'd restrict myself to two topics: the weather, and the general state of health." Heh.) Then he had a solo, "I got accustomed to her face", which would be an opportunity to show that maybe he's starting to think about what she said - but no, he doesn't change his views at all. And then she comes back, and he asks her where his slippers are, that she threw at his head a few days before. End.

WTF! Why is she back! I always hoped she turns right around and leaves again. Higgins is such an arrogant self-centered misogynistic asshole. The version I saw last night, unlike the film I saw years ago, even had them kiss passionately. No no no no no.

I really want the fic where she never comes back, marries Freddy, and she becomes a very successful phonetics teacher. More successful than Higgins himself, because she actually treats people well. She stays friends with Higgins' mom, and eventually becomes friends again with Pickering, who apologizes. She and Freddy are happy together, and even if she never falls in love with him in a romance novel sort of way she likes him a lot. And Higgins stays alone and miserable.

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

Heh. This is why My Fair Lady is one of my Yuletide fandoms, and my prompts are all about fixing that ending.

[toujours_nigel]

Well, Shaw's play does at least part of what you want, and it's a pity that doesn't get honoured more often. /drive-by comment

[schneefink]

Did you ever get a fill for that prompt?! I just looked at AO3 for ten minutes, but I couldn't find anything for that fandom.

[schneefink]

I looked it up on Wikipedia and I indeed like that ending much better. Seems like Shaw knew how important it was that Eliza/Higgins wasn't the endgame, so it's even more of a pity that the most famous adaption changed that.

[beatrice_otter]

I wish! Most I've ever gotten was a drabble for Yuletide Madness. archiveofourown.org/works/2820083 And that's usually my easiest fandom to pick up if they have problems with the fandom we're matched on,so you'd think I would get one by now. I live in hope.

OTOH, last year I got some lovely feminist Moon is a Harsh Mistress fic, so I can't complain.