I have just wanted to finish watching "Gigi", and I want to write my review before I have time to have my mind changed by outside sources.
The first thing to say is that this film is very well done. It won 9 Academy Awards, including for best picture. The art, costumes and scenery are all exquisitely designed. I don't know about their historical accuracy, but they certainly seem like a good version of Paris in 1900. This is a musical, and within that genre, the music is great. The choreography is also captivating. One small break in realism is that everyone speaks English with a bad French accent. Also, of course, that it is a musical. But other than these quibbles, this film hits every note it has to. There is little to argue with artistically here.
The problem comes with the fact that this is a musical comedy about two women preparing their teenage granddaughter/grandniece into a life of what amounts to prostitution (I have to admit that I didn't realize how blatant that was until the film was mostly over---I took it to just be preparing her for life as a society woman in general). Gigi is a teenaged girl (the film doesn't quite tell us how teenaged, the actress, Leslie Caron, was 26, but Gigi acts about 10 years younger than that) being raised by her grandmother, with help from great aunt. Gaston Lachaille is a friend of her grandmother's, and spends time with Gigi, as a break from his jaded life as what amounts to a billionaire playboy (he is apparently rich enough to hold a party with 2000 people). Gigi's simple and high-spirited nature is a break from the overly-refined socialites he usually mixes with. However, him and Gigi start feeling attraction for each other, leading to Gigi's grandmother trying to set her up as a mistress to him. Gaston's uncle, the ribald old Honore (who looks and acts like Roger Stone) also encourages Gaston to this end, with the memorable phrase "she'll keep you amused for months". But at the end, Gaston and Gigi want something more, and he proposes marriage to her, leading to a Hollywood happy ending.
So the charitable way to look at this is that it is a story about people learning to express their true emotions over social conventions.
The other way to look at it is as a story about two women grooming a teenage girl to be a prostitute. In which case the last minute marriage proposal just looks like it sweeps a lot under the rug.
As with many things, a lot of the question of this hinges on the creator's intent. Some of the scenes in the movie seem to be truly black comedy, as when Honore congratulates Gaston on creating his first (attempted) suicide. If the movie is satirically skewering the way that people use and mistreat each other, than Gigi being used is put in a critical context. But my own feeling is that the story is more using these things as an example of "naughtiness", as if these activities are just relatable foibles. And part of this is that, somewhat paradoxically, societies that are closed about sex are sometimes much more open to sexuality. This came out in 1958, in a world where the facts of sex were so suppressed that the reality of what was going on didn't have to be addressed. Flirtation, kissing, talk of scandal and infidelity could all be shown on screen, because the biological facts of sex aren't shown, with the most direct reference to what Gaston and Gigi's arrangement would be like was the phrase "sharing a bed". I think I have to change my judgement from earlier: the movie's indecision about how seriously it takes Gigi's plight is an artistic flaw. Is this a societal abuse that will end up ruining Gigi's life, or is this just those zany French doing their silly naughty French thing?
I have to say the beginning of the movie was rather charming--- Leslie Caron's Gigi does feel like a breath of fresh air in the stuffy world she inhabits. For me, the point wasn't that she was young, but rather that she was free-spirited and spontaneous. (And, as mentioned, the movie isn't really clear on how young she is.) But after watching the movie, from the standpoint of 2021, the unpalatable implications eclipse the fun and romantic parts.