The Life of Gia: Too Beautiful To Die, Too Wild To Live.

GIA is an autobiographical movie based on the life of a late 1980s supermodel, Gia Carangi. It chronicles around both the glamour and terrors of the fashion and modelling industry, and how people can so easily be swayed by the notion of fame, despite how fast and painful the fall from fame can be. In this way, it also reminds me of Factory Girl - a Warhol muse who met a similar fate (see movie review here). Upon minutes of arriving in New York City, Gia Carangi was whisked off by a powerful model agent, Wilhelmina Cooper (today known as the founder of the Wilhelmina Modelling Agency, a globally-recognized leading modelling agency) and quickly rose to fame with her beauty. Unfortunately, not long after her modelling career picked up, cocaine, pills and heroine led to the demise of her career and an end to her life.

Angelina Jolie's portrayal of Gia was absolutely stunning. Jolie's acting was spot on and really connected her viewers to every single emotion that Gia experienced. Her transformation from a confident supermodel owning the runway to a drug-induced and sickly animal was absolutely brilliant. This movie also explored the idea of sexuality, as Gia competed fearlessly with a man for the love of a woman, Linda. This breaks the stereotype of female models in the industry, who are very often appropriated by the male gaze. Despite Gia's eventual raging and dangerous lifestyle, we still see snippets of who she used to be - a normal, warm and caring woman - in the way she feels hurt from people in the industry treating her as meat, her wishes for a "normal" life and the gracious way she handles receiving news of her health. We see an emotional and vulnerable Gia and we both empathize and sympathize her. This again makes me question the toxicity of the industry, and how people can so easily be swayed into such a dangerous direction despite numerous warning tales that exists, such as this one.