Pretty Woman, starring hollywood's 1990’s golden girl Julia Roberts was upon release viewed as a chick flick. It was one of those classic movies where a man meets a woman and they fall in love and live happily ever after. Nowadays Pretty Woman is considered a classic, but for a very different reason. It is now a classic example of how women are portrayed as objects to men. While the film does try to show Vivian as an independant woman, the whole plot of the movie is how she relies on him for her livelihood. The same is true in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. On the surface Pretty Woman and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, have little in common. One is about a hooker finding love and the other is about a depressed woman who becomes obsessed with a certain wallpaper, but the two these texts truly could not have more similarities in their message. Both depict the ever too popular theme of the man who controls everything for them. While it may be more apparent in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Pretty Woman is just as heavily focused on the male-dominant theme. This theme of male-dominance is a huge issue in today's society. Feminism is at its all time high, and it is becoming more and more apparent just how male dominated our world is. It is important to discuss this issue because not only is it a reality, this theme also pops up all over Hollywood. Hollywood is notorious for not only creating sexist movies, but also not treating the women equally to men. Women in Hollywood are still not paid nearly as much as their male counterparts. While Pretty Woman may have been made over 25 years ago, movies in Hollywood today are still heavily focused on the male dominant theme. Comparing these two very important pieces together, we learn how the world has made such little change since 1892,1990 and today in 2016 and how something needs to happen.

There are many reason why these two pieces are very similar. While both these pieces have a plot that revolves heavily on the helpless women and controlling male, they do have very different situations. In Pretty Woman, the main character Vivian is “saved by a man” while The Narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” life is completely controlled by her husband. When you really dive deep into Pretty Woman you begin to see that not only is she saved by a man, but much like The Narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, most of the things she does are controlled by Edward. Almost everything that both of these characters do are done with the input of the male figure. They both are completely reliant on the male even if they are not completely aware that they are. While in Pretty Woman this overall controlling theme is less obvious, many people have picked up on this less than pretty theme. As Anna Pulley stated in her article for the Daily Dot, “Vivian is painted as a good girl who lost her way. She is in short, “wife material”. As Pulley mentions at the end of the quote, the movie attempts to display Vivian as someone that is perfect for Edward to marry. Again reinforcing the fact that women are only props for men and are sitting around waiting to be saved. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the husband thinks that he is saving his wife when in reality he is driving her even more mad, “ I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So I will let it alone and talk about the house.” (Perkins Gilman,758). The Narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is being suppressed by her husband and is not able to express her own opinions. In Janice Haney-Peritz article discussing the patriarchal society displayed in “The Yellow Wallpaper, she brings up very good points about how if the narrator had not listened to her husband she would not have become as crazy(Haney-Peritz,2003). The narrator was so quick to listen to her husband because that is what was expected of women in that time period. Instead of speaking out against him and getting the help she needed, she holds back her opinions. Without males in these two characters lives they would not know what to do. Similarly or rather on the flip side, every time Vivian expresses her own opinion she is shot down so she starts to think like Edward. These two works are similar in many ways, but with their similarities come many differences.

Although these two pieces discuss virtually the same topic, how this topic is addressed in these two works is very different. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the main character is a depressed woman being hidden in a house by her husband who controls everything that she does. She has little to no say to anything that happens to her, and this leads her into a deeper depression. In Pretty Woman, the main character is scooped up by the male figure and he decides what she does, but she is a willing participate. She does not fight him on who has say over everything because she needed to be “saved” by someone. Edward is not intentionally trying to control Vivian, versus in “The Yellow Wallpaper” her husband is intentionally very controlling despite his good intentions. In the era that this piece was written in women had much less say over men then they do now. While there is so much oppression against women today, it is very important to note that there is a difference between the two time periods. The plots of these two are also very different. One is about a depressed woman trapped in a house, while the other is about a hooker finding love. Despite their differences the two pieces together help the reader/viewer understand more about each of them.

When looked at together these two compliment each other. “The Yellow Wallpaper” helps viewers of Pretty Woman see how the movie is not some fluffy romcom but instead really does put a larger perspective on it. At first glance the movie seems light hearted, but when viewing it with “The Yellow Wallpaper” in mind it takes on another message. The message that comes across is that Vivian and Edward's relationship is not some cute romantic one, but instead one that was not only started based off him paying her but is also based on him saving her. Pretty Woman helps readers understand more about the short story by showing them that this type of relationship is not rare. The husband-wife relationship depicted in the story seems very extreme but after careful analysis of other situations ie. Pretty Woman, the reader realizes that sadly the overbearing and controlling man is an all too common reality of both postmodern and modern times.
