Why Holly Golightly Bugs Guys
One man reveals his true feelings about the sinister Holly Golightly.
Maybe it's saying too much about the girl I was trying to date at the time (who I put in a cab after our morning screening, and who, before I could hop in, left without me), but there's something about Holly that preys on every man's worst fears about feminine capriciousness.
Her story seems to conclude that if a guy cannot anticipate and abide by his woman"s most whimsical and superficial desires—and, keep her in expensive trinkets that come in turquoise boxes—she will eventually leave him.
It's the ultimate act of betrayal when we learn that Holly is really Lulamae Golightly of Tulip, Texas, who has left behind her own children and a perfectly kind yokel of a husband played by Buddy Ebsen. (If only she had known he would strike oil the following year on the hit show The Beverly Hillbillies.)
Yet the movie seems to reward her lies in a way that real life never would. She still gets her guy and her missing cat, in the end. (I wonder how many viewers of Breakfast at Tiffany's know that Truman Capote’s original short story ends with Holly fleeing, alone, leaving her man, and her feline forever lost in New York.)
Our culture already possesses a tradition of stories about reckless, helpless women rescued by compassionate men who redeem them with perfect lives and valuable treasures, and they are known as fairy tales. When a woman embraces a shiny bauble like Breakfast at Tiffany's, when she aspires to be Holly Golightly, she might as well dream of being Cinderella or Snow White, living on the banks of a fictitious Moon River. Wherever these women are going, I hope they're not going my way, but I'm still probably gullible enough to give them the cab fare to get there.
Discussion
Breakfast at Tiffany's isn't a happy sweet indulgence about a self-centered socialite...did you even TRY to pay attention?
Holly is a runaway who fled to New York to escape the marriage she was forced into as a child.
When she gets to New York, she realizes she's completely incapable of taking care of her self and resorts to prostitution to survive.
She isn't self-centered - she's still mentally a child and just trying to survive the life she's living. Really, do you think prostitution was top on her list of life goals?
BAT is a sad story of a woman who is best trying to deal with what life gave her - a choice between a miserable marriage to a much older man or a life of prostitution where she has some semblance of freedom - and who covers up her misery (and mental instability) with parties, alcohol, and general refusal to accept reality.
Her husband was a child mollester, he married her when she was fourteen remember? in fact he should have been put in jail. And those weren't her children. She was a chid herself at the time. How about that
If you read the novella (not short story) you would know that Holly is certainly not a socialite - she's a prostitute, as is her friend 'Fred'. Maybe you should watch the movie again, or read the book. She's selfish and hard-hearted for a reason.
