(ALERT: SPOILERS!)
When I first heard about this show I was VERY skeptical. I read that it was a show based on My Fair Lady, about a self obsessed woman who didn’t know how to be social in real life and was addicted to social media. I thought how could this possibly be a good idea for a TV show? After a few episodes it has proven me wrong. I can definitely see where the shows creators are coming from comparing Selfie and My Fair Lady, it’s actually not that far of a stretch.
In Selfie they work at a pharmaceutical company and when Henry realizes how self absorbed Eliza is, he offers to teach her how to be nice and relatable in real life verses on social media.
Professor Henry Higgins, who is a professor of phonetics, discovers Eliza Doolittle who has a very strange way of speaking, on his way to India to meet Colonel Hugh Pickering. He then offers to teach Eliza how to speak and become a classy lady like a woman in a flower shop, hence the name My Fair Lady.
Yes, the main characters are Eliza (Dooley on Selfie) and Henry (Higgs on Selfie), the teacher/student relationship is the same, but personality wise the characters of the same name are complete opposites. Eliza (Doolittle) is the relatable one and Henry (Higgins) is an obnoxious rich man who thinks he is to good for her and everyone else. Eliza Doolittle starts out very poor and then works her way up to becoming more established and Eliza Dooley is already very successful in her career as the top sales rep for her company.
On Selfie, it seems like Eliza is starting to become more real and in My Fair Lady, Henry Higgins does the same in the end. Henry (Higgs) even said “I’ve grown accustomed to your face” to Eliza, a famous line from My Fair Lady.
I hope that Henry and Eliza end up together on Selfie, it seems like Henry is already falling for her and I’ve seen glimmers of her falling in return. This is another opposite, in My Fair Lady, Eliza falls for Henry and he doesn’t come around until the end. There is even a character named Freddy who has a relationship with Eliza you can tell henry is jealous of, same as in My Fair Lady. In both cases “Freddy” isn’t good enough for her according to Henry.
My Fair Lady has been among my favorite musicals for years so I had to check out this show when it aired. Although it has a lot of similarities, it’s also a lot different and prevalent to modern day. I think there are a lot of great lessons about today’s society and we can all do better with being social in the real world and not just digitally. This show being hilarious is another thing it has going for itself, not many shows make me laugh these days.
This has nothing to do with this post but I have to mention that Selfie stars Karen Gillan, who was a total badass as Amy Pond on Dr. Who.
Watch Selfie at 8 PM Tuesday nights on ABC