On Christmas Eve, my wife, Julia, and I watched “My Fair Lady” with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. What a great musical.
In 2018 Julia and I saw Lincoln Center’s revival of “My Fair Lady” and loved it, too. One reason I enjoyed it was because the revival changed the ending of the play and the movie. In the original 1956 stage version of “My Fair Lady” and in the 1964 Hepburn movie, the ending was the same as the one in the 1938 Hollywood film of “Pygmalion”—a happy ending with Liza Dolittle intending to stay with Henry Higgins.
In the original George Bernard Shaw play, Liza does not stay with the insensitive Higgins, but returns to the feckless Freddie Eynsford-Hill. In the 2018 Lincoln Center revival, in a #MeToo era, Liza leaves Higgins, and the implication is that she doesn’t return to Freddie, but goes off independently on her own—an ending I liked.
In the Axios newsletter today, story #5 reports on Brian Stelter’s CNN program,“Reliable Sources,” on which Stelter recognizes the historic field of women named to lead huge news organizations this year. Here is CNN’s Stelter’s list of Editor-In-Chiefs:
- Danelle Belton at HuffPost
- Sally Busbee at the Washington Post
- Julia Chan at The 19th
- Tracy Connor at the Daily Beast
- Allesandra Galloni at Reuters
- Sarah Kehaulani at Axios
- Mary Margaret at Entertainment Weekly
- Julie Pace at the Associated Press
- Swati Sharma at Vox
- Alyson Shontell at Fortune
Stelter did not include two other women named to important Editor-In-Chief positions in major news organizations this past year:
- Maria Douglas Reeve at the Houston Chronicle
- Katrina Handy at the Dallas Morning News
Plus, these are the women who run television news:
- Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News
- Kimberly Godwin, President of ABC News
- Rashida Jones, President of MSNBC
- Wendy McMahon, Co-President, CBS News
Not only are the majority of broadcast and cable television news organizations run by women but also the heads of sales of many major media companies are headed by women:
- Jo Ann Ross, head of sales at CBS
- Linda Yaccarino, head of sales at NBC
- Rita Ferro, head of sales at Disney (ABC, ESPN)
- Marianne Gambelli, head of sales at Fox
- Marne Levine, head of sales at Facebook.
In my opinion, it’s about time the news content and monetizing the content of major news and media organizations are overseen by women. I believe it’s also about time that we had a female president. Men have screwed up politics and government so much for so long, we need a change.
It’s clear times have changed since Shaw wrote “Pygmalion” in 1913 when women’s life options were severely limited and controlled by a patriarchal society and in 1956 and 1964 when the play and movie “My Fair Lady” were produced. Liza had few choices.
Today, Liza could be, probably should be, president…of news, of sales, of America.
