Pretty Woman sales staff were rude, but were they really wrong?

[Weretheywrong]

Yes, I know. We are meant to cheer for Vivien as she triumphantly returns to have her moment of revenge, all beautiful and with her shopping bags full of thousands of dollars worth of clothes. She was such a likeable character that we did cheer.

But really, the chances of a sex worker coming into your high class boutique having a black credit card that wasn’t stolen would be next to zero. The staff worked on commission probably had kids to feed and mortgages to pay so clearing out the sex worker who would deter customers and would be almost certain to not be able to pay for anything seemed eminently sensible. They were wrong, but how on earth would they have known that?

This movie is problematic in many ways but in this instance, my sympathies lie with the saleswomen.

Let’s not forget Kit offering a blow job to the elderly gentleman in front of his wife at the hotel reception. What on earth did they do to deserve that crudeness. I would be furious if someone spoke to my grandparents like that. But again, it is apparently another stand up and cheer moment.

And Edward is just vile when he gave her the eye to give him his paid for blow job when she was happily watching tv.

This thread is inspired by the much classier Gone With the Wind thread.

I haven’t watched it for a while, but remember someone pointing out to me every female role was either a prostitute or a bitch..

And Edward is just vile when he gave her the eye to give him his paid for blow job when she was happily watching tv.

i totally agree this was vile and almost unexpected but he DID hire her for the ‘service’ which she’d agreed to so…. 🤷‍♀️ Didn’t she continue watching and laughing at it while she was doing it?

I think the saleswoman/women were seen as bad probably for the way they spoke to her and treated her. It would have been difficult moving her on politely (and they wouldn’t know if she’d turn hostile and aggressive on them I guess) but from what I remember having seen bits of it over 20 years ago they were supercilious and snobbish - hence the victory at the end when she returns and they change their tune. But yes they had no idea of her circumstances or character did they.

It is a film that even made me cringe the first time around. She only got somewhere buying the clothes with help. Of course most of these high end shops wouldn’t believe she hadn’t stolen the card. I’m not sure why a clever rich businessman didn’t realize she’d struggle to be believed , especially sending her out on her own to do it.

I liked the film. I think you can watch things without having to look at them through a critical eye.

I think people relates to the feeling of being judged by those who consider themselves superior because they have the money to buy expensive stuff, clothes in this case.
The film itself is pure shite. It was only saved by having great actors in it. If it was not for the cast and the money they threw on it, it would show how shite the flipping script is.
But... many films of that era were this dodgy. And superficial and empty.
I always wondered how could anyone call this a great love story? Then... there is the fact that she sees him past his money and brings some fun into his life. And he sees her past her as a prostitute and values her as a person. Thanks to the hotel manager, he is the real star in all this. Only deep meaning you can get out of this film, but I am not sure it was real deep love, but the frantic workings of a desperate hotel manager trying to keep all under wraps, and keep his job. It did not engage me.

Dirty Dancing is it for me.

Hated it first time for its glamourising of selling sex and its misogyny. I have at least been consistent. I will agree that Julia Robert’s is tremendously likeable as an actress.

She didn’t have a black credit card when she first went into the boutique, she had a huge wad of cash that he’d given her.

She asked a direct question. They refused to answer it because they had already decided that she wasn't the type of customer they wanted. They could easily have said "$800" and if they were right about her, she would have moved on.

She tried to 'service' Edward immediately on arrival and he slowed her down. At the same time, that's the way she makes money. If he isn't going to let her do her job (one that I don't agree with, but let's go there) how else is she going to get money? He would just be wasting her time.

It's a bit like all the 'close the sweatshop' talk. It's a lovely sentiment, but who is going to pay these workers to do something else? Has anyone asked them if they'd rather work in a sweatshop or have no money at all? Anyone who thinks that the general public would be willing to pay £60 for a t-shirt because everyone was working in great conditions is very naive.

I like Pretty Woman. If you take the wider themes, Edward changes his viewpoint because Kit comes into his life, and Kit realises that she wants and deserves more than she has.

I'm a bit confused by the fact that she was apparently expected to be able to use someone else's credit card in the first place. Was that standard back then? Surely it would have made theft and fraud ridiculously easy?

I got my first credit card a couple of years after the film came out, and I'm pretty sure I had to sign a slip for every transaction to "verify" my identity (in the days before chip & PIN).

Aah, cross post!

And actually one thing a sex worker might plausibly have is cash. It's not like people would have been paying her by cheque.

From memory, Vivienne didn't even get round to producing the cc before the staff told her to leave. So they didn't even know about the cc

I disagree. Staff working in any high-class establishment should be so well-trained that they are polite and courteous to everybody entering the premises.

It was definitely easier to do this in the US at the time. I was an au pair in the US back then and the mum of the family used to give me her card all the time for groceries, petrol, takeaway etc. She told me just to sign her name - my writing was very different and local shops knew her/knew I wasn’t the cardholder, but nobody seemed to care! 🤷🏻‍♀️ I think the UK was much stricter.

Right? I don't care how hard she hammered the credit card, which wasn't hers, the risk of becoming the high end boutique that kits out prostitutes isn't usually the marketing hook that holds up the capital in the brand.

I wonder if they would have stayed together? She did show him that there was more to life than money , but ultimately she would have wanted it all. I mean , most people would. I suppose it’s a fairy tale that you make up your own ending to

The older couple in the hotel were staring at Kit , so Kit making her "75 the wife can watch" was Kit shaming them for being rude.
The original script in "Pretty Woman" was meant to be a lot darker

Wow, that's crazy! But makes sense of quite a few scenes from American films that vaguely puzzled me at the time. Shop assistants from Legally Blonde mocking Elle as an idiot girl "with daddy's credit card," etc.

And if Kit was handing over a credit card in the name of Mr Edward Lewis (or Elle handing over her dad's card), then it would presumably be quite hard to argue that they were really the cardholder...

The hotel manager was only nice because he was a frequent user of the hotel and had lots of money.
Anyone who wasn’t glamorous and pretty would have been asked to leave. He didn’t buy the ‘ she’s my niece ‘ line anymore than anyone else did. I liked his character, but they are all so shallow.

Do sex workers wander round obviously looking like sex workers really?

The whole film is disturbing and questionable. Why is anyone even watching it?

It takes all of Julia Roberts’ charm to make this film look like anything other than the misogynistic shite it is. If it had continued to be called 5000 (working title — how much smarmy git Edward pays Vivien for a week of ‘sex worker giving the girlfriend experience’), it might be more obvious that you could summarise it as ‘Money buys you anything from the salesperson’s tie to a grand hotel agreeing to pretend that a favoured customer who keeps a prostitute in his penthouse has a ‘niece’ to an entitlement to the folksy charms and love of an adorable tart with a heart who flosses.’

And no,I wouldn’t expect staff of an expensive boutique to think it might be worth their while serving an obvious street prostitute in case she’s been given free run of his platinum card by one of her johns.

I admit that Julia’s smile is enough to win anyone over. She also isn’t a gold digger.
It isn’t a moral film though , I d have liked her to tell him to do one at the end. However, that’s not how Hollywood worked back then and never has done !

I expect if you are operating from the street, you'd be lucky enough to have all your teeth let alone look pretty with a nice wardrobe of clothes. It's not a very realistic movie, is it but I think that bit stacks up.

It remains incredibly poplar — I can only assume because of Julia Roberts, who brings enormous charm to an awful part. I remember passing the Prince Charles cinema off Leicester Square, which was doing a free showing for PW’s 20th anniversary, and there was an enormous queue down the street, including several women too young to have seen it when it was originally released wearing the outfit Vivien wears to the polo match, complete with hat.

Bridget (in the clothes dept) wasn’t either iirc.