The film Legally Blonde pretends to be a celebration of the power of women in the dusty, sexist halls of Harvard Yard, but in fact it is a comedy that uses the time-tested ability of sexist roles to gain cheap laughs and play to the tastes of those who snicker at women, believing them to be less able than men and qualifying all of their successes at having been based on luck or some other sort of dynamic than true competence. Reese Witherspoon stars as Elle Woods, a sorority girl who fits every stereotype of the naïve blonde. She catches the eye of Emmett Richmond (Luke Wilson), who is an attorney in the firm where Elle finds an internship and is nice enough to simply supervise her while she fumbles her way to a victory in court that validates every stereotype against blonde women. Professor Callahan (Victor Garber) is Elle's professor who brings her into his firm as an intern, only to make sexual advances toward her later. He seems to be a warm, sensitive man, but ultimately he is greedy, because he views Elle as a sexual object rather than an accomplished attorney. Brooke Taylor-Windham (Ali Larter) is a fitness instructor who stands accused of killing her husband, and is represented by Callahan's firm (and ultimately by Elle). Brooke is a very self-assured woman who has built herself a strong presence as an aerobics instructor. Warner Huntington, III (Matthew Davis) is Elle's ex-boyfriend, who dumped her before they both went to law school. Warner lacks self-confidence and masks that by failing to maintain any of the romantic relationships in his life. Vivian Kensington (Selma Blair) is Warner's new girlfriend, who ultimately sides with Elle; at first, she tries to ruin her reputation by having Elle show up at a party in a ridiculous costume, but she ultimately shows respect for Elle; Paulette Bonafonte (Jennifer Coolidge) is Elle's only true friend – and also her manicurist. Paulette is a doormat at the beginning of the story, but Elle gives her the confidence to stand up for herself in the face of her abusive ex. In the story, Elle, Emmett, Brooke and Paulette are privileged. Elle not only gains entrance to Harvard Law School but ends up winning her court case and is asked to speak at her law school’s graduation. As will be established later, this ultimately takes away her power as a career woman. Emmett is privileged in that he ends up getting to marry Elle. Brooke is privileged, because she ends up being acquitted of murder while staying true to her desire to remain a famed aerobics instructor. Ultimately, though, this process disempowers her, as her refusal to admit that she had had liposuction (and thereby give herself an alibi) shows her off-kilter priorities. Maintaining the façade of a perfect body is more important to her than staying out of prison Paulette is privileged because she escapes her unhappy relationship with an abusive man, thanks to Elle’s help; this privilege neither helps or harms her in the portrayal of a career woman. The other characters end up being punished: Professor Callahan is exposed as a teacher who sexually harasses his students; Warner tries to get back together with Elle but is rebuffed; Vivian is left having agreed to marry someone (Warner) who is really not interested in her, in the final analysis. As Elle’s main oppositional character in the story, because of their rivalry – both in the law school and over Warner – Vivian is neither empowered nor defanged as a career woman; however, the fact that she ultimately realizes that Warner is not the right man for her, either, shows that she can make sound relationship decisions.
While Elle is clearly favored by the film's creators, on the basis of the resolution of the plot, this favoritism has its price: the creators of the film wanted to make a funny story that uses the stereotypes against the perky blonde women in order to gain laughs from the audience. One example of this has to do with the ways in which Elle wins an acquittal for Brooke, who is accused of murdering her husband. Brooke has an ironclad alibi for the day of the murder – she was undergoing a liposuction procedure at the time when the crime took place. However, because she is a famous aerobics instructor, this information would ruin her reputation (of course, a murder conviction could lead to much less pleasant consequences, but that contradiction never comes up with much vigor in the movie). It turns out that Chutney, the victim's daughter, was the killer; the fact that the family's cabana boy can identify (and appreciate) Elle's shoes is used to assume that he is gay (and could not have been having an affair with Chutney). Also, the fact that Chutney tells a lie in her own alibi that Elle figures out, because it involves washing hair that has been permed less than 24 hours previously, also helps Elle gain Chutney's confession in open court. In the parts of the movie that are filmed in the courtroom, the tilt is definitely toward the feminine. Not only are the legal points related to things that women (and homosexual men) are more likely to know, they have to do with subjects that would hardly ever come up in a real court case, at least to the point where they would be the linchpin for acquittal. This subverts the normal, more masculine/authoritative aspect of a courtroom, but it also makes the feminine look ridiculous as a result, because of the petty nature of the facts that change the case’s direction. The fact that a murder case turns on a gay stereotype and a simple fact about hair care – two things that a stereotypical blonde women would have known – takes Elle's power away, even as she wins her case. This case took no legal prowess to solve; it only took a basic familiarity with stereotypes about homosexuals that would gain some laughs on television, as well as the basic knowledge that a hairdresser would have. The suggestion is that Elle has no more qualifications than a hairdresser – and that as a woman she needs no more qualifications.
Another scene that strips Elle of her power is the (obvious and expected) scene in which Professor Callahan makes sexual advances toward her. The fact that the advances take place shows the viewer just how tired the sexual stereotypes are toward women who look like Elle. To her credit, she turns down the professor's advances, but up to that point in the movie, it seemed like the professor might have been impressed with her perceptive abilities. However, this advance shows that the internship may have had nothing to do with her intellectual abilities (or even her choice of perfumed paper for her resume).
Yet another scene that takes Elle's power away, ironically, happens at the end of the film, as Elle has been asked to speak at her law school graduation ceremony. While this might seem to validate Elle's progress from ingenue to legal expert, the story has made no basis for this special distinction for Elle. While she has a winning smile, the fact remains that she (somehow) was the only person in the entire case to realize that no one would wash out a perm so quickly – and was also the only person who could convince Chutney to confess to the murder. Somehow, this fact escaped the notice of the Boston Police Department. These scant qualifications imply to the viewer that it is still Elle's winning looks and bubbly personality that have elevated her to the top of the Crimson's latest crop of law school graduates – traits that have much more to do with gender than with accomplishments. One can hardly imagine Warner, or any male student (or any female student with less sex appeal) receiving such an accolade with so little basis. Ultimately, this film would seem to support the fact that a woman can be satisfied in the workplace, as it appears that Elle has found a way to make the legal profession suit her unique femininity. However, the fact that the movie trivializes her at almost every turn in the story, whether it has to do with her insistence on the right accessories, shows that it is difficult to take a woman seriously in a serious profession such as the law. Her perfumed resume might be cute, and her knowledge of the way to care for a perm might be helpful, but she does not appear to be an earnest candidate as a serious lawyer. The final message is that real lawyers should practice the law, and that real lawyers are men. Even though Elle is privileged in the movie, she loses any prestige that she might have had from the way in which she gets that privilege.
At the beginning of the film, Elle appears in a scene that actually validates her somewhat – before the plot has begun the process of tearing her apart as a person. As her senior year in college is winding down, and she is about to graduate with a degree in fashion merchandising, Elle realizes that she loves Warner and wants to marry him. He has been admitted to Harvard Law School for the next year, and so she decides to go against the accepted gender codes and propose to him. She expects that he will agree, but instead he not only refuses her proposal, but he breaks up with her. Because it turns out that Warner has been seeing Vivian on the side – and has even proposed to her – Elle appears as a sympathetic figure. She has achieved success in a degree program that is accepted in American society and leads to a career field in which she can do very well. She could have moved on with her life, into her fashion merchandising career, and remained true to herself. However, the artistic decision to drape her animal prints and her chihuahua all over the screen and have her decide, at the last minute, to study for the LSAT and do well enough on it to score her own ticket to Harvard, belittles her as a person and, ironically, emphasizes the cultural code: even though she did well enough on the test to gain admission, her appearance makes her look foolish in ways that are not realistic. The lighting in these scenes, combined with the vibrant surroundings, highlights her fair skin and blonde hair. The wealth of accessories in the scene shows how materialistic she is; the camera angles vary between zooming on her vacuous grin and panning around her room.
Scene 1:
CULTURAL CODES DENOTATION CONNOTATION
Fair skin/blonde hair Member of ethnic majority
Attributes that men like
Expensive accessories Prosperous
Proposes to man Assertive/independent
ARTISTIC CODES DENOTATION CONNOTATION
Lighting highlights features Accentuates attractiveness
Bubbly sound effects Increases superficiality
Set cluttered with accessories Materialism
It does not take long for the filmmakers to portray Elle in a scene that makes this loss of power visible to all. Elle changes from being a girl who has decided to stand up for herself and head off to college to representing the sexist objectification that the pornography industry has given women. Vivian fools Elle into showing up at a house party dressed as a Playboy bunny. The lighting at the party is somewhat dim, as one might expect at a house party. The drab green walls and the darker tones in the clothing of the other characters (who are dressed normally) make Elle’s hot pink costume jump off the screen. The camera focuses on her outraged expression, but also drops back to show her in contrast with the rest of the people at the party. While this happens as a result of Elle's naivete, rather than her actual desire to act out the role of the completely objectified woman, the visual shows the viewer what the filmmakers think of Elle's role. Even though she is clever and kind, her progress at law school – including the offer of the internship, her ability to gain the leading role in the trial, and her own advancement among her students – has far more to do with the way she looks and acts than with any intellectual gifts that she has. Having her don the garb of Hugh Hefner's harem gives the viewer this impression in ways far more lasting than any sexist rant by Warner could have.
Scene 2:
CULTURAL CODES DENOTATION CONNOTATION
Costume from a pornographic
Enterprise Physical objectification
Others laugh and gawk Weakening of Elle’s status
ARTISTIC CODES DENOTATION CONNOTATION
Lighting focuses eye on Elle Elle is not part of the law
Other women’s expressions They feel inferior as well
Show resentment
Loud music in background General lack of restraint
While this film does not explicitly tie into any contemporary historical events, it did come out during a time period when sexual harassment was emerging as a common topic in universities and graduate schools, and Elle's perky transcendence of those awful men around her, ultimately, does those women who have worked hard to earn each accolade a disservice. During this time period, many universities were adding policies forbidding sexual relationships between faculty and students, as well as implementing policies against student-to-student sexual harassment, because of the conflicts that those relationships were causing. Such incidences as the accusations lodged against members of the University of Colorado’s football program in 2001 drew attention to the culture of sexual harassment that underlies not only the relationship between student-athletes and other students but also between university staff and students as well. Conventional femininity is certainly not favored in this movie; the filmmakers do not give us a non-conventional feminine alternative to favor instead.
Works Cited
Legally Blonde. Dir. Robert Luketic. Perf. Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, and Selma Blair. Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer, 2001. Film.
