This is What We Need to Become to be Serious!

Rachel Miles
Jeannina Perez
WST 3015 (Introduction to Women’s Studies)
17 February 2010

This is What We Need to Become to be Serious!

Legally Blonde follows Elle Woods’ academic journey from sorority sister to savvy-yet-chic lawyer in her quest to win back her ex-boyfriend, Warner Huntington III. Much of the movie’s humor stems from its portrayal of Elle, which consistently shows her as airheaded, flighty, and generally ignorant of the more serious intellectual and social challenges associated with life at Harvard law school. Although Elle emerges at the film’s end a confident, capable lawyer, this transformation requires several major concessions on her part, regarding not only her interests (fashion for philosophy and ethics of law, for instance), but also her understanding and presentation of herself as an individual.

Elle’s grasp on her own sexuality and status as a sexual being is one of the most obvious of these concessions. Accustomed to the more carefree California lifestyle, Elle initially arrives at Harvard very open about her sexuality. Her video application essay is deliberately filled with shots of her lounging in the pool, clad only in glittery bikinis (Video Essay & Exam). Elle knows her physical appearance fills the dominant beauty standard: she is “thin, lean, tall, young, white, and heterosexual, with flawless skin and well-groomed hair” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 208), and she has seemingly no qualms about exploiting her privileged beauty to get her admission into Harvard. The hook succeeds, and the Harvard admissions committee, so distracted by Elle’s physical appeal, overlooks her inexperience and general ignorance of what law school will entail and grants her admission.

After arriving at Harvard, however, Elle’s presentation of herself as an openly sexual being changes noticeably. As her dedication to and success in her studies increase, her wardrobe changes, becoming not only more professional, but also more conservative. A lack of immediate social acceptance at Harvard and conflict with Warner’s fiancée, Vivian Kensington, force Elle to reevaluate her presentation of herself, particularly (in a reflection of her dedication to the fashion industry before entering law school) her wardrobe. Vivian’s style and mannerisms reflect her old-money, New England upbringing; she dresses in muted tones, high-necked sweaters, and clothing that shows off her figure as present, but demure, and clearly off-limits. In short, she portrays a model of the virgin/whore dichotomy women are expected to reflect within themselves, the “central contradiction of the culture” dictating that they appear to “work hard and produce and achieve success and yet, at the same time . . . live impulsively, spend a lot of money, and be constantly and immediately gratified” (Kilbourne 237). Elle sees in Vivian a prototype of the sophisticated, desirable woman: “This is the type of girl that Warner wants to marry! This is what I need to become to be serious!” (“I’m Going to Harvard!”) In her efforts to become “serious” and again worthy of Warner’s attention, Elle abandons bright colors for more respectable black and similarly-dark clothing, her skirts become longer, and her shirts acquire collars and gradually lose the plunging necklines she favored in dresses and blouses at the film’s beginning. While her clothes maintain their fashionable quality, they stop emphasizing her youth and sexual appeal because Elle herself slowly comes to devalue those traits in herself. Her new, restrained wardrobe helps win her social acceptance and respect as a law student, but this new confidence comes at a cost—namely, the loss of her easy confidence in herself as a sexual being, both desirable and desiring, and ultimately not a trait deemed attractive in the dominant culture’s understanding of an ideal woman.


Works Cited

Kilbourne, Jean. “The More You Subtract, the More You Add.” Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. Ed. Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 231-239. Print

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Health.” Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. Ed. Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 207-224. Print

Luketic, Robert, dir. Legally Blonde. Perf. Reese Witherspoon. 2001. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2006. DVD-ROM