The 2001 hit movie Legally Blonde is a movie that many millennials grew up watching. It is a fun movie and is generally categorized as a chick flick and romantic comedy. Despite the film's success and popularity, it is grossly underrated as what it truly is: a perfect feminist film. Legally Blonde is the film adaptation of the book of the same name by Amanda Brown. In the movie, Delta Nu sorority queen Elle Woods, played by Reese Witherspoon, is broken up with by her boyfriend of four years. Elle is reasonably devastated considering that she thought he was going to propose to her but instead said that he needed to marry someone more serious. Determined to get her man back,Elle applies to the school Warner is attending to win him back and prove she is serious enough for him. Hilarity ensues. Of course, that description sounds like a recipe for a classic chick flick, and it has many chick flick/rom-com elements, but it is more complex than that.
First of all, Elle's boyfriend is not attending just any university. He was studying at Harvard Law School! Though her parents appear to be wealthy, Elle does not just buy her way into school. She is shown studying hard for her LSAT exam. The bare minimum she can make to pass the exam and get into Harvard is a 175. Elle scores a whopping 179 on her LSATs, which is one point away from a perfect score! Before that, it is stated that Elle has a 4.0 and has extensive knowledge of fashion and style.
Elle does understandably stick out at first. This is evident in her bright pink clothing and bubbly optimism in contrast to her more monochrome and serious peers. A teacher even kicks her out of class because She finds out that Warner, her boyfriend, has gotten engaged to another girl, a girl who tried to make Elle look bad in front of the aforementioned professor, over the summer. She almost decides to drop out but is convinced to stay by her manicurist and new friend.
Elle puts forth her best efforts in class,especially after being humiliated at a party by a trick played on her by her ex's new fiancèe,Vivian, concerning the attire for the party. Her ex-boyfriend sees her there and tells her that she is not smart enough to get an internship that they would all be eligible for later. She then sets out to prove that she is more than just her looks and finds that she has an actual knack and passion for the study of law.
Later,Elle, Vivian, and Warner are all picked to work on one of their teachers' cases. Elle actually knows the client, which leads to Elle being the only one the client trusts because of their similar backgrounds and interests (This will come in handy later!). Vivian gradually defrosts and becomes friendly towards Elle while working on the case. Elle even manages to figure out that the pool boy claiming to have an affair with her,which would give the client motive to murder her husband, was gay and therefore lying. Things seem to be looking up for Elle until the law professor she is working for tries to seduce her. Vivian sees this and thinks that Elle slept with him when she actually spurned his advances and was planning to drop out of law school. When Elle goes back to the nail salon to say goodbye to her manicurist friend, the professor who kicked Elle out of class earlier gives Elle a much-needed push to not give up on law school because of one sleazy man's advances.
Elle then goes back to the courtroom to help defend the client. The client decides to fire the teacher and have herself be solely represented by Elle (with minimal supervision, of course). Naturally, almost everyone doubts Elle's abilities to defend a client in a high-profile case. She gets off to a shaky start because of her nerves. Then she totally blows everyone away with her knowledge of hair care by pointing out that the murder victim's daughter could not have been in the shower at the time of the murder if she'd gotten a perm earlier in the day. This leads to the confession and conviction of the daughter.
After this crowning moment of awesome, Warner now decides that Elle is the girl for him after all. Sadly for him, Elle has had a change of heart.
We then skip forward to Elle speaking at her graduation. Then there are brief epilogs describing the fates of a few of the characters, including that Warner graduated without honors, job offers, or a girlfriend and that Elle has a best friend in Vivian and a new boyfriend/fiancè.
Light-hearted and fun as it may be, Legally Blonde is also the greatest feminist film of our generation. It shows the protagonist achieving her goals through hard work and studying while remaining true to herself. If that isn't a powerful message for women everywhere, I don't know what is.
