I had that happen to me, too. I needed a NICE gift for my daughter’s 21st birthday and had decided on diamond earrings. However, I was a 50+ woman with graying hair, shopping while wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. Many, many sales clerks did not see me at all. I could have been invisible. In a couple of other stores I was treated like a customer. Guess who got my money.
So, I love the shopping scenes in this movie even though as a general rule I do not like shopping.
I can only answer for myself, of course, but I like it because it’s sweet and it makes me laugh.
It’s not a terribly deep movie, but I do like the touches of irony: When she gets what she thinks she wants (money and a shot at shopping at the snooty stores) she discovers it’s useless. What she really wants/needs is respect, from the clerk and from the concierge and from Edward. Just like Eliza Dolittle, you can dress her up and give her money, but it’s her *behavior *that earns her respect. When she learns how to act like a respectable person, she gets respect.
I like how she’s a good prostitute who doesn’t have a pimp and who gets a sweet gig because she’s smart and funny and got interests of her own, not because she’s the best looking. (I thought her hooking outfit made her look as terrible as it is possible for Julia Roberts to look.)
I like how Edward’s paying her for sex isn’t what makes her feel like a whore.
I like how she saves him emotionally before he saves her physically.
I like how he makes her childhood fantasy come true. Doesn’t matter whether or not it’s my fantasy (it isn’t) but it’s hers, and so that’s really sweet.
This movie gets a lot of crap, and I think it comes from people who think prostitution is bad and all sex is prostitution and that all women are prostitutes (and that any movie featuring a prostitute that doesn’t end up with her dead would be similarly reviled). I think the most common reasons given for disliking this movie are more misogynistic than the movie is.
Funnily enough, the same friend I mentioned earlier who loved Pretty Woman ALSO loved Thelma & Louise.
Ah yes, but we need to know if that makes her a golddigging bitch 
In this case no, she married a Navyman. She’s a stay at home mom now and writes ad copy on the side to bring in a little extra money.
Maybe her sister took the message of Pretty Woman more to heart. She (the sister) plays Cinderella now at Disney World. Really! Then again, HER boyfriend is a bartender, so even Cinderella may not have a Cinderella complex.
Edited to add: I’ve been telling my friend to recommend to her sister that she take notes on her experiences and write a chick-lit novel called “My Life as a Princess” or something. She’s already had to deal with cattiness from some other princesses, and had to repeatedly rebuff the advances of a guy who thinks that playing Prince Charming means he actually IS Prince Charming. All she needs is a sassy black and/or gay friend, and I think it could be a hit! Julia Roberts is probably a little too old now to play the part in a film adaptation, though.
The Cindy at Disneyworld is fantastic. Not sure if its the same woman, but one of the women they have their is beautiful (looks like Cinderella) and remembers little girls names from year to year…
But you don’t get to write tell all books as a Disney princess - you sign away that ability when you sign the employment contract.
To get all Jungian up in here, I always figured “Pretty Woman” resonates so well because it fills a certain story that’s ALWAYS been present throughout history. As someone else pointed out with the Princess Diaries, it’s a story of a person/commoner/everyday person who doesn’t fit into the higher society, but yet is befriended by a member of it, and rises to shine above those former snobby members of society.
It’s a classic storyline, and can be see in another classic film: My Fair Lady, which was a GREAT story. In Latin class we had this drilled into us by our latin teacher, who would play scenes from My Fair Lady, as she pointed out that this film was based on a play of the same name in the 1950’s, which in itself was based on a GBShaw play from the 1910’s called Pygmalion. Which again can go back to another play in the 1871- Pygmalion and Galatea. That one is a stretch, but it has the archtypes once again with the statue being completely pure and basically a “fish out of water” in modern society. Which all was based on the original Myth of Pygmalion. Which was the point our Latin teacher was trying to make to her bleary eyed students at that point. That roman mythology was still present and seen through out modern society (though why she chose Pretty Woman a film made in the 1980s) to use as an example in the year 2000 to teach her class as “modern films” kinda always made us wonder.
But I guess something stuck in my head after all. So whenever I hear of the Film “Pretty Woman” I think back to “My Fair Lady” and then that damn Roman Myth of “Pygmalion”. There’s something in the idea that certain stories are found to repeat over and over in Human history in some cultures- the ideas presented within just seem to resonate and echo and are popular even in different time periods and retellings. I liked that phrase the “Cinderella Story” basically, as that’s another great example of these sorts of things.
I loved Pretty Woman when first I saw it, but not because of the clothes, or the jokes, or the hooking or forcible mergers. I remember the scenes where Gere’s character discusses his relationship with his father, and Roberts’ character discusses her bad taste in men and I think “here are two deeply flawed people, how lovely that they can love each other”.
My favorite movie is The Princess Bride, but I don’t see myself as Buttercup. I like the jokes, the closeness the telling of the story builds between grandfather and grandson, the unfailing loyalty the characters display, the strength of the friendships and the general nobility of character. I agree that you have to ask questions about why someone may like something. I bet money it ties into a significant event in their life.
Philster, you might want to consider how deeply you’re looking into these women. You make a lot of comments about superficial things, and accuse them of being superficial. You might be neglecting to fulfill each other’s emotional needs.
I don’t particularly like this film, though I find myself defending it from time to time because my husband irrationally hates it. He views it as misogynistic because the powerful, rich man rescues the poor, desperate prostitute. I think it’s a bit more complex than that – more about how the characters transcend their societal roles and become just two people in love – but it’s really not that great a movie. I don’t really care for so-called ‘‘chick flicks’’ in general and would much rather watch a comedy not prefaced by the word ‘‘romantic.’’ Most movies have some sort of love story anyhow. I do very much enjoy love stories. I just usually hate romantic comedies because they lack substance and the plots are usually incredibly contrived. I much prefer an original and interesting plot with flawed people, like Stranger Than Fiction or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Both contain beautiful, original love stories, but their aim is to communicate something more than just a happy ending.
I like both those movies (I was blown away by T&L when I first saw it) and have been supporting myself by myself for quite a few years. 
There are apparently several different Cinderellas, so it may or may not be her. I’ve only seen photos of her in costume (haven’t been to Disney myself since I was a kid), but she definitely does look the part. It’s funny to see someone I knew as a little girl transformed into a Disney princess!
*Maybe my friend can write the book instead of her sister, then…SHE didn’t sign a contract. But I’m sure she wouldn’t want to make trouble for her sister at work.
On a simple level, Pretty Woman is a funny, well-written and well-acted romantic comedy, so it is bound to be liked by women. But on a deeper level:
As is often the case, the main character is a surrogate for the viewer. In Pretty Woman, the female viewer is Julia Roberts. You are poor, down on your luck, and rejected by society. And yet you are so beautiful, so special, that you are chosen by this rich, powerful, handsome (and romantic) man to be his. Not only that, but you are indeed so special that you inspire him to be a better man.
This is the same premise as many other movies, such as this year’s Twilight, where an ordinary girl is so beautiful and special she is chosen by a powerful, handsome (and romantic) vampire to be his, and apparently even try to redeem himself (I haven’t seen it, so I’m not sure.)
In many respects, this is similar to Joseph Campbell’s Hero: an ordinary young man, usually poor and rejected by society (often[sup]1[/sup] an orphan[sup]2[/sup]), is chosen by something powerful to become something special, a hero or savior.
1: frequently
2: a person who has lost his parents