Pygmalion Resources

Websites

A Slideshow That Won't Make You Fall Asleep

Check out this awesome slideshow about the Pygmalion myth and the pop culture it inspired. From Project Runway to Toddlers and Tiaras, this has it all.

Movies and TV

My Fair Lady

Watch as Eliza Doolittle sets something on fire during her speaking lessons. Oops!

Pretty Woman

Julia Roberts is a prostitute with a heart of gold in this modern My Fair Lady adaptation.

Lars and the Real Girl

Starring the one and only Ryan Gosling, this surprisingly sweet movie is about a man who falls in love with a life-sized plastic doll.

Things Get Strange In Mannequin

As far as zany 80s movie go, you really can't get more absurd than Mannequin, a film about a window dresser who falls in love with a (you guessed it!) plastic mannequin.

Weird Science, Indeed

Two nerdy boys use computers and supernatural "science" to create their idea of a perfect woman. She ends up teaching them a thing or two!

America's Next Top Model Goes Greek

Cycle 15 featured the models dressed up as "living statues." This is so weird, you kind of have to watch it.

My Living Doll

This 1960s TV series about a sexy female android pre-dated I Dream of Jeannie, but it's got some similar subservient themes. Creeptastic!

Video

Stick Figure Showdown

Check out this hilarious animated comparison between the Greek Pygmalion myth and George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion. Stick figures explain it all.

How Those Photoshopped Images Are Made

With their ability to craft women into ideal beauties, Photoshoppers are basically modern-day Pygmalions, right? Watch how a Photoshopped image gets made.

Videogames

Galatea Takes Charge

Check-out Galatea, an interactive videogame/story told from the point of view of Pygmalion's statue after she comes to life. That's what we're talking about.

Audio

Turn About Is Fair Play

In "Coin-Operated Boy," the Dresden Dolls flip the Pygmalion myth on its head and have a woman obsess over a plastic man. Sample lyrics: "Can you extract me/from my plastic fantasy?"

Shredding Guitar, Building Fantasies

Aerosmith's video for "Hole in My Soul" features a college-aged scientist inventing his perfect woman in a lab.

Books and Plays

Edith Wharton Weighs In

In Wharton's House of Mirth, Lily Bart is referred to as "malleable" and often treated like an object. Hmmm, problematic?

Pretty Woman's Precursor

In Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, Isabel Archer is transformed into a high-class woman when her uncle leavers her a ton of money.

Before Broadway, Shaw's Play

Before My Fair Lady, there was Pygmalion. Read George Bernard Shaw's original story of Professor Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle.

Images

Puppet Julie Andrews

Check out the poster from the original 1956 production of My Fair Lady. Lady as a puppet—sound familiar?

A Sculpture of a Sculpture

This is cool: Rodin's sculpture of the Pygmalion myth.

Before and After

Here's a poster for the play Pygmalion, featuring a before and after shot. Eek!

A Transformed Woman

Take a look at Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle after she's been transformed in the movie version of My Fair Lady.