PRETTY BABY (FILMED IN 1978)
Directed by Louis Malle and stars Brooke Shields, Keith Carradine and Susan Saradon. Screenplay written by Polly Platt.
The plot is centered around a 12 year old young woman (Violet) introduced into the world of prostitution in Storyville (red-light district) in New Orleans during the 20th century. Her mother (Hattie) is a working prostitute in an elegant brothel and it is run by Madame Nell who has a cocaine habit and is elderly. Ernest J. Bellocq is a photographer avidly interested in taking pictures of the whores and of little Violet who is a child but budding quickly into womanhood and who will soon become a practicing prostitute.
Propose Extra Credit to teacher and ask if you can do an oral presentation with students asking you questions to allow you to become used to speaking in front of a crowd. This will teach you how to be an orator and a great speaker one day.
The assignment is to watch the movie, answer the questions with emotional feeling and thought and write an essay of the possible consequences of living in a brothel and whether or not indifference occurs to stop being moralistic and uncaring of what the outside world thinks or feels about a whore.
By doing so you will develop stimulative comprehension, interpretative comprehension, and thought comprehension. This is a starter and teaching session.
Stimulative Comprehension - Consist of stimuli that encourages thought patterns to emerge that facilitate understanding with more comprehension and continuous thought.
Interpretative Comprehension - Consist of taking a thought and becoming more analytical and interpretative of the intent whether clearly versed or hidden and obtaining the intent to keep on.
Thought Comprehension - is the last step in assimilation because it takes in account the stimuli and the reason (interpretative comprehension) and it will facilitate considerable change and expanded thought that allows more understanding and evolved thought patterns.
1. Generate Questions that incorporates using exploratory thought patterns and will allow more concise assimilation.
2. Answers become more broadened, detailed and generate more interactive ability and cognizant ability expands when continuing reading.
3. More ability to be analytical and upgradeable analysis and observational skill will naturally expand as student grows and matures.
4. Summary and conclusionary thought of subject provide assimilative procedures by using the supposedly common tools that are a base but is allowable to be expanded to ensure more accurate reading and entails allowing thought processes to increase.
QUESTIONS IN RELATION TO MOVIE (STORY)
1. What are your thoughts about a whorehouse or brothel?
2. Do you think that whores are immoral?
3. Do you think whores serve a special purpose?
4. Do you think that children born in a whorehouse have a chance to live a life of normalcy?
5. Do you think that all are pressed into a life of prostitution?
6. If a child has been reared into this type of lifestyle…Do you think that they dream of a life outside this environment? If so what do you think would make them change and wish to leave?
7. In concern with the story Pretty Baby…Do you think Mr. Bellocq the photographer found the life of a prostitute fascinating?
8. Why do you think he wanted to photography prostitutes? and Ms. Hattie in particular?
9. Do you think Mr. Bellocq was easily embarrassed when he first came to the brothel?
10. Why do you think they had a black ouju (woojo) woman praying for them and blessing the house?
11. Do you feel that they found the whole affair queer to light candles and ring bells?
12. Do you believe she (the black ouju) was a charlatan?
13. Do you feel Hattie was unfit as a mother? Why?
14. Do you feel she should have given her children away to be raised in a more conventional setting such as an orphanage instead of a whorehouse?
15. Do you believe Hattie was prejudice when she expressed impatience for her coffee?
16. Why do you think she started letting her daughter (Violet) watch her have sex with her customers?
17. When a customer started shooting in the brothel do you believe that violence was an element, was expected and a usual activity?
18. What kind of language do you find offensive in this movie?
19. Is this language suitable for everyday usage outside this house of ill-repute?
20. Do you think that it is usual for generation by generation of whores to stay in the prostitution profession?
21. Does Violet (Hattie’s daughter) have a future as a decent woman?
22. Hattie’s mother was a prostitute was she not?
23. Why did Hattie stay and become a prostitute?
24. Who did Hattie blame for her circumstance and her being forced to stay there and whore?
25. Why did Hattie want to leave?
26. Did Hattie want to be respectable?
27. Why did Hattie wish herself dead and that she had never been born?
28. Was Hattie depressed?
29. Do you believe or think that Hattie felt unclean?
30. Do you think Hattie could make it outside the whorehouse by herself?
31. Do you think Violet was too grown or precocious for her own good?
32. Why do you think Hattie kept asking questions of Mr. Bellocq of why he did not solicit sex from the other prostitutes like the other men?
33. Why do you think Hattie told him everything of what the madam said about him and called him?
34. What was close to the whorehouse that helped the whores make money?
35. Why do you think her mother (Hattie) started to school her daughter (Violet) on how to please a man by allowing her to watch herself and her John (paid customer) have sex?
36. Why do you think Violet looked on being bidded on as an adventure?
37. Does Violet express regret at the loss of her virginity?
38. Does Violet understand that she was displayed as marketable merchandise?
39. Do you think Violet felt elated for her virginity to be sold for $400?
40. What is Violet’s age at this time?
41. Why do you think the black lady told Violet to leave her son alone because he was black and she was white and there was to be no sex or play between them of a sexual nature (white and black race)?
42. What was Violet doing to make the black lady tell her to leave her son alone and why?
43. Would there be consequences if they (Violet and this black boy) continued on in this fashion?
44. Would the black boy think it was okay if he started to have sex with someone white?
45. What would happen to him (the black boy) if caught having sex with someone white?
46. Who whipped Violet because she said she would do what she wanted and pleased and why?
47. What did Violet do next after the whipping?
48. Whose house did Violet run away to? How did she know where he (who is he) lived?
49. Why did Mr. Bellocq marry her and she was underage and considered a child?
50. Was Violet illiterate and only knew the way of prostitutes (language, ways, behavior)?
51. Do you believe that she was capable of polite conversation that required social niceties and conduct?
52. Why did Mr. Bellocq get tired of Violet’s tantrums, destructive behavior and malice exhibited by Violet and his photographic supplies and pictures?
53. Why was the whorehouse being picketed and the whores run out of town?
54. Why did Violet’s mom come back and search until she found her?
55. Did Violet leave with her mother alone and why?
56. Why did Bellocq stay behind and not leave with Violet, mom and stepfather?
57. Had Violet’s circumstances changed since she left the whorehouse and was she financially able to care for her now?
58. What did Violet’s mother and stepfather want to do for her to change her life and give her a chance to live a more respectable life?
59. What is the moral of the story? (Exactly what is the purpose of this story and what are they trying to relay?)
60. Is this a life anyone would be jealous or envious of? Why?
61. Can everyone pick their destiny?
62. Do you believe anyone cared for the prostitutes as people?
63. Do you think the madam was ashamed to sell a child’s virginity and had a hand in corrupting her?
64. Does her (the madam) behavior make you wonder if she had done it before?
By Felicia McCaw
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