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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