Gia Carangi was one of the first “famous” people to die from AIDS. She was also thought to be the world’s first “super model”.
But the world of high fashion – “Fashion is not art. Fashion isn’t even culture. Fashion is advertising…and advertising is money” – is just another “industry”. People are used until they can be discarded.
But no one forced her to shoot the dope into her veins. No one forced her to contribute mightily to the wreckage that became her life. But I don’t pretend to understand the rationalizations of a character in a movie. Even if the character depicts someone who actually existed.
GIA
Directed by: Michael Cristofe
[b]Gia: Look, this was a free trip to New York. If I had known you were looking for Marcia fucking Brady, I woulda stayed home.
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Wilhelmina: You know, dressing like a motorcycle tramp is somewhat interesting for a 17 year-old girl. Talking like one is not. In fact, talking at all is not really required in this profession…or even encouraged.
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Wilhelmina: Just be yourself.
Gia: Okay, yeah. What is that?
Wilhelmina: Oh, darling, if I could answer that for you or for me, well, life on this planet would be a very different proposition.
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Gia: Go see, go see, go see, go see somebody else. I ain’t no good at this. I ain’t no good at this at all. But even if you are good at it, what, exactly, are you good at?
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T.J.: Have you ever had sex with a man before?
Gia Yeah, once.
T.J.: And?
Gia: And I could have done that with a German Shepard
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Gia: Are you nervous?
T.J.: Yeah.
Gia: Am I making you nervous?
T.J.: Yeah.
Gia: Well, good, that’s the idea.
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Gia: You scare the shit out of people so they can’t see how scared you are
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Kathleen: Know that old joke, how can you tell when a junkie’s lying? Her lips are moving? It’s not funny.
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Gia: I have to go…I have to go. Where the fuck does everybody go when they have to go?
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Mike: Every model has a moment…I mean, the ones who make it at all…and whether or not they can parlay that moment into some kind of a career, well, that’s the gamble, isn’t it? 'Cause the moment is a very short time. It’s here and then it’s gone, just like most of these girls. They’re here and then they’re gone.
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Mike: Your look is not spring. Your look is nuclear-fucking-winter
Billy: Hi, I’m Billy. You’re very pretty. I’ll bet you’re a model.
Gia: Why? Do I look stupid?
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Gia: Where are you going?
Linda: You don’t have any clothes on.
Gia: Don’t change the subject.
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Gia: I’d tell them that you don’t have to be anybody. Because I’d know that being somebody doesn’t make you anybody anyway.
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T.J.: Sex was really easy. There was sex everywhere. It didn’t really mean too much. Love, love was the hard thing to find. Even if you were looking for it, which not too many people were. And even if you found it, which not too many people did, even if it was right there in front of you. No; how could you see it with all the sex in the way?
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Girl at Group Therapy: Wait a minute. What am I supposed to feel here? Sorry for you because you’re beautiful? Because you made ten thousand a minute doing fuckin’ nothing? “Oh it was so hard, so terrible, they treated me so bad.” Listen girl, you had a free ride. And you fuckin’ blew it. And me? I’m some kid from Ohio, reading fashion magazines, looking at your picture and thinking I’m supposed to look like that. And going fucking crazy because I don’t. Because nobody told me it was a lie. Because the magazine doesn’t come with a label that says, “Caution: This is a lie. Nobody looks like this.” Not even you.
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Nurse: Gia, listen. There’s something more serious going on which caused your infection. Something they’re calling Acquired lmmune Deficiency Syndrome. Maybe you heard about it?
Gia: No. How did I get it?
Doctor: Well, we’re really just finding things out…and you’re the first woman I’ve known about. Although, intravenous drug users seem oto be in a specially high-risk group. So you probably got it from a contaminated needle.
Gia: How do I get rid of it?
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Kathleen: You have to understand. In those days…nobody knew. People were scared. I was scared. She must have been scared too.
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Kathleen: She died around 10 o’clock in the morning. They tried to pick her. They tried to pick her up off the bed, and she…The flesh just fell off her back. It just fell off.
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Gia [from her journal]: Life and death, energy and peace. If I stop today it was still worth it. Even the terrible mistakes that I made and would have unmade if I could. The pains that have burned me and scarred my soul, it was worth it, for having been allowed to walk where I’ve walked, which was to hell on earth, heaven on earth, back again, into, under, far in between, through it, in it, and above.[/b]