"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Monday, May 6, 2019

Favorite Character: Elle Woods (Legally Blonde)


As with my previous Legally Blonde post, this is specifically dealing with the musical.  While I’m sure Elle is just as terrific in the movie, it’s been too long since I’ve seen that to be able to speak intelligently on it.  No doubt much of what I’m saying will equally apply to both, but know that the musical is what I’m drawing from here (a few spoilers.)

In my review of the show, I already touched on a few reasons why I love Elle.  It’s true that her initial goal is to win back her ex-boyfriend, but in order to do that, she displays some serious dedication.  Her plan requires her to get into Harvard Law (you know, nbd,) so she busts her butt studying until she gets a high enough LSAT score.  That right there is enough to show that Elle can do basically anything she puts her mind to, and even if Operation:  Win Back Warner isn’t worth the effort she puts into it, 1) that doesn’t take away from the work she does, and 2) this is what sets her on the road to really finding her path.  And that’s what makes it all worth it.

I just love this, that the “step one” of Elle’s plan is something she views as a side detail, but it ultimately changes her life and helps her discover a whole new dream for herself.  We see this appearing in little ways over the course of the first act, but it really comes to a head at the end of Act I, in “So Much Better.”  In this song, Elle starts out devastated that her plan has failed, that her best efforts weren’t enough because Warner still wants Vivian instead of her, but it flips the moment she discovers she’s earned one of the four slots in Callahan’s internship.  Her excitement is just infectious; I especially love her announcement that she’s showing up to the court room an hour early because she can’t wait until 9 o’clock to get started.  In this scene, she’s every bit as bubbly and over-the-moon as she is about a prospective proposal from Warner in the opening number, and that’s important.

Another thing I mentioned in my review is that, when Elle succeeds in law school, it’s on her terms, not anyone else’s.  Throughout the show, people continually tell her she has to be something different:  Warner says he wants, “Less of a Marilyn, more of a Jackie,” Callahan throws her out on her first day of class, and even though Emmett is sincere in helping her keep up with her workload, his advice is peppered with judgments about her appearance, insisting that the time she puts into looking good is a waste.  And when Elle begins the internship – because, at that point, she’s realized how much it means to her and she doesn’t want to blow it – we see some internalization of those remarks.  She dresses much more sedately, in a conservative navy-blue suit and skirt, and she demonstrates that she can “be a Vivian,” that she can become what’s expected of her to fit into that world.

But in the end, this is another epiphany that she has.  Regardless of what others think, she works just as hard as they do and is just as capable, and she doesn’t have to change who she is in order to prove that.  When the title number arrives near the end of Act II, she exchanges the blue suit for a pink one before her triumphant return to the court room, declaring, “Back in the game, / Back to the trial, / But I’m going back in my style!”  Women have to deal with so much crap in the workplace, especially in male-dominated professions like law, and conventional wisdom often claims that femininity can’t go hand in hand with strength or intelligence.  But that’s just plain wrong, as proven heartily by one Elle Woods!

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