If you think of "Legally Blonde" you will probably almost always think first of Reese Witherspoon walking around in pink outfits while she holds her adorable dog Bruiser under her arm, or the iconic 'Bend and Snap' move, proven to get a guy's attention. While both are wonderful and entertaining details to the move and character of Elle Woods, something else about the story is far more influential and supportive of women: her journey from fashion marketing major sorority queen to Harvard Law student to eventually graduate and becoming a successful lawyer.

What makes this particular detail about the movie so significant is it's seemingly more accurate portrayal of working through a drastic change in one's life, and equally as important, what it really takes to become successful, too. (Yes I realize that it's not entirely accurate that someone like Elle Woods, who spent her time lounging by the pool, hanging with her sorority sisters and gossiping about drama and high fashion before she up and worked her way to the top of her class at Harvard all within a matter of a year, but that would take forever to portray that in real time). In "Legally Blonde", the success of Elle Woods is shown throughout a time span of about a year. In this time, we see her go from being a designer for a line of faux-fur panties for her sorority's charity project to "Elle Woods: future lawyer for the class of 2004". This time where she shifts her focus and studies and ultimately becomes a much more successful person than she would've been otherwise, is pretty significant. Other movies that depict women as highly successful employees or even (Gasp!) bosses and CEO's or major organizations and businesses- movies like "The Proposal", "Baby Boom", and "The Devil Wears Prada"- show these women in powerful employed positions right from the start, without the time and energy it took for them to get there. Now I'm not denying that characters such as Sandra Bullock's in "The Proposal" or Meryl Streep's in "The Devil Wears Prada" didn't have their share of struggles, cut throat or life altering decisions, and to add people who constantly put them down making them feel inferior- because no way in hell would Miranda Priestly get to be at the top of the fashion world without breaking hearts, and crushing dreams and necks. No, no what I'm saying here is that in these movies we never saw the change and long enduring struggles they went through to become successful like we see Elle Woods go through in her journey to "lawyer for class of 2004."

This journey lets us see exactly the type of pains and hardships she put herself through to get to the top-which ultimately stemmed from motivation to get back at her sexist ex-boyfriend Warner. Though she came into Harvard, bubbly personality wrapped up in a pink dress with shoes to match, right from the start everyone gave her a hard time. Because people judged her on her previous experiences- or maybe lack thereof- she was constantly made fun of and put down for being so bold as to study law at one of the most prestigious schools out there. She was a Fashion major and in a Ricky Martin video, how could she be serious about being a lawyer?

Well she was for more than one reason and when she got in her head that she'd come too far to quit, she buckled down and rose to challenge in her own unique ways to be on the same level as every other student. And because she worked so hard over all this time, she gained a lot of values as well, including her dignity because she doesn't need to sleep her way to the top with her arrogant, "stupid prick" of a professor to win her case, and win at life.

So yes, while there are plenty of movies that many may not no about even, that depict women in powerful and successful positions, especially ones where they aren't just handed their success or sleep their way to it, "Legally Blonde" is one of those movies of special significance because it shows people just how hard it is to reach success, but in all the right ways, for the right reasons, all while wearing a cute pair of not last season Prada shoes. And boy does it look good.