Legally Blonde: No Such Thing as a Useless Hobby

There are many ways to distinguish a main character, but definitely the most bold is having an all (or mostly) pink wardrobe. Elle literally grabs your attention as soon as she enters the room.

As if one fever dream within twenty-four hours wasn't enough, I for some reason decided that to compensate the blow to my mental state that Babe: Pig in the City inflicted upon me, some of my extended and immediate family should watch Legally Blonde the next morning. In retrospect not the best film to get myself grounded back to reality, but it's definitely an interesting film to watch. Essentially being a representation of the craziness of the late nineties, Legally Blonde feels like a portal to some sort of stereotypical other time, yet at the same time able to deliver a poignant message that anyone can benefit from. Legally Blonde is crazy yes, but it's strangely practical, a living contradiction between the zaniness of the action and the common sense of its messaging.

Contradictions are really the foundation of Legally Blonde's story, and obviously no aspect is more contradictory than that of Elle Woods, our hero. Outwardly seeming like simply a silly and woefully impractical woman, Elle shows herself to be anything but the trophy wife she would appear to be. She's may be overenthusiastic and prone to flights of fancy, but she possesses immense determination and heart. Her determination is even more remarkable due to just how goddamn mean a lot of people are to her. It was actually pretty hard to watch her be mercilessly ridiculed and taken advantage of, and going into this film I was under the impression that it was something of an endorsement for dressing all in pink and being frivolous. If anything nearly every interaction she has with other people (barring a few) is colored by disapproval and contempt towards her. The central message of Legally Blonde is simply that being yourself is not a reflection of your worth, it's the sum of your parts, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying something that hurts nobody.  However, besides her character, it's also the depiction of the practical benefits of having hobbies and being in organizations that I found to be especially striking. Elle isn't an engineer, but she still finds a lot of practical applications for her favorite activities. She has an eye for clothes and cosmetics, and while it sounds silly she uses this to her advantage, both to avoid getting scammed and also to crack the big court case. We generally see affiliations with organizations like fraternities and sororities in a cynical way, with them being a way to circumvent hard work and dedication. However, Elle constantly demonstrates what the personal value of these groups are to people. In Delta Nu she has a support group that both encourages her and values her (never doing her work for her), it gives her a chance to mentor and be mentored, and last but not least, it gives her an initial connection with alumni like the defendant for her big trial. I'm not exactly a fan of traditional Greek life, but I can't deny that Legally Blonde actually shows the part of Greek life that we rarely see. Really, it amazed me just how much honesty there was in this pink and faux-leather filled fever dream.

There's not really much I can say about the film that I noticed technically besides how warped and exaggerated everything seemed in nearly every aspect. There are no half-measures, nothing that isn't accentuated to the limit. If Harvard students are bookish, here they're practically robotic. The camerawork, especially for montages like that of her applying to Harvard Law, was for whatever reason very reminiscent of Smash Mouth's "All Star" music video. I saw more pink objects in an hour and a half than I ever have before, so there's that.

Legally Blonde isn't by any means a masterpiece, and it definitely shows its age with varying degrees of grace. The depiction of gays in particular has aged poorly in spectacular fashion, yet at the same time this is contrasted with Callahan's (a lawyer and law professor) attempt to start a relationship with Elle by leveraging his authority, which is pretty familiar in this post-Weinstein world we live in. It's  worth a watch, even if for no other reason than to see an exaggerated depiction of the nineties culture. Besides that there's still a good number of universally relevant messages to be found throughout the film. While I still very much prefer the musical that came after the film (as more a preference of style) and think that it's still worth watching, I still found a lot of enjoyment in Legally Blonde, not sure when I'll watch it again, but I wouldn't object to seeing it a second time.

Next up is Dishonored, a game that was sitting in my steam library for years while continuing to pop up now and then, almost like a shadow...