Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Legally Blonde

The movie is about discrimination, not against colored people but this time against blonde girls. It is about stereotyping and judging people with appearances using first impressions. What I'm saying now reminds me of the novel Pride and Prejudice and how it was going to be named at first First Impressions by the writer.

In Legally Blonde, we know from the start that she is smart. This is clearly shown in the store when she goes to buy a dress and the woman in the store stereotypes her into the "dumb blonde" category. She surprises the woman by meticulously showing her awareness and knowledge of the dress the woman wanted to trick her into buying. This scene is there to clearly demonstrate her cleverness and to show us that she is really smart. It also shows us how other people are stereotyping her just because she is blonde.

She goes to Harvard Law School and gets in contact with a professor whom kicks her out in her first class. Her ex boyfriend's fiancee was also a reason for her being kicked out. Later in the movie, we find that this professor whom kicked her out in her first lecture actually becomes the reason for her deciding to continue her studies at law school and not quite as she was going to. Her ex boyfriend's fiancee also turns towards her gradually and they become good to one another. This plays on the same theme that first impressions should not be final judgements and can change to the opposite.

Near the end of the movie, we find her ex boyfriend wanting to come back to her. When he tells her he loves her, she tells him that was what she wanted to hear for long but then she declines getting back to him. She is no longer illusioned by his external charm. During the movie, when he tells her to betray her client's trust by exposing her secret this reveals his real character from inside and makes us know him and his reality more (though it the his reality was hinted upon at from the start of the movie for breaking up with her and not wanting to marry her just because she was blonde and not of his family's type).

Her dog plays a cute role in the movie, an entertaining one. When she goes to Harvard and dresses up formally for her first class with a tie and all, we find the dog wearing a tie too. At the final scene, when she is graduating we also find the dog with the graduation hat on his head. A nice entertaining addition to the elements of the movie.

Yet the movie, perhaps unintentionally, seems to discriminate against men. Her ex boyfriend turns to be a foolish guy, her male professor whom took her to work on his cases tries to seduce her and the guy who worked for her client lied in court. The three bad characters were males. While on the other side, the professor whom helped her was a female, the friend whom came closer to her was a female (her ex boyfriend's fiancee), the client who innocent of murder was a female. The woman whom she helped out get her dog back from her ex boyfriend and get a new boyfriend still another female.

The movie was a fun lesson in stereotyping trying to tell us that we should be empathic about people and try to understand them deep from within, to trust our instincts, that logic alone cannot work and that first impressions that are based on external features might not be the best way to judge others.

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