If you’ve ever been swept away by the relationship between Eliza Dolittle and Henry Higgins in the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, you’ll want to read this similar and equally heartwarming story currently taking place in modern-day Los Angeles: A kindly linguistics professor has taken in Bhad Bhabie, given her a huge feathered hat, and taught her how to comport herself in high society.
Fascinating! It seems we have something of a My Fair Bhad Bhabie on our hands!
Linguistics professor Gregory Whitford of UCLA was strolling the streets of Hollywood this week when he came across the entourage of Bhad Bhabie, the teenage sensation whose journey into the limelight began with her infamous catchphrase “Cash Me Ousside,” and he instantly became entranced by the young white woman’s highly unusual accent as she mumbled about how she was “prolly gonna smack up on some hoes” later on that day. Whitford introduced himself to Bhad Bhabie and hypothesized that he could turn her into a gentlewoman within a fortnight—an offer which Bhad Bhabie reluctantly accepted by giving Whitford the finger and drawling “fine, bitch.” Realizing he had his work cut out for him, Whitford quickly dressed Bhad Bhabie in a feathered hat and floor length gown, and then set about teaching her to recite the phrase “Betwixt the twine and twisted vine, a surreptitious sun shall shine.” Though she at first resisted by scrolling Instagram and loudly clicking her fingernails on her phone, Bhad Bhabie soon tried in earnest to complete elocution exercise, struggling late into the night to say “betwixt” rather than “tishhh” and “twine” rather than “ho.”
It seems he is indeed turning her from whatever she is currently into a lady!
When Bhad Bhabie finally mastered her diction, Whitford took her to a high-class fête at another professor’s home, where she impressed everyone around her by regaling them with a perfectly enunciated story about the time she “fucked up Dr. Phil’s bitch-ass on TV.” And even as Bhad Bhabie has herself transformed, she has helped the reticent, cold-hearted Whitford come out of his shell, too, encouraging him to appear in her “get ready with me TikToks” and even threatening that fellow UCLA professors who express differing linguistic theories than him will “catch these hands.”
Still, there has been some friction between the two: When Whitford kept Bhad Bhabie up past midnight studying tongue placement diagrams to improve her pronunciation, Bhad Bhabie became aggravated, calling him a “broke bitch” and threatening to take him on Dr. Phil so “that bald ho can handle [him].”
Wow! While Bhad Bhabie’s transformative journey hasn’t been without its challenges, it nonetheless proves that anybody, no matter how rough around the edges, can rise above their flaws and become an elegant, sophisticated individual—some might just need a little more guidance than others. Here’s hoping she continues making progress and one day stops yelling angrily about Dr. Phil altogether!
