For my Law in Culture review I chose the movie Legally Blonde directed by Robert Luketic released July 13th 2001. The movie holds a 4.7-star rating on Google and has spawned 3 spin-offs with a 4th being set to released in theaters May 20 2022. Since its release, many movies have parodied its more well-known scenes, with the line “So you’re breaking up with me because I’m too…. Blonde?” even becoming a viral trend on the social media app Tik-Tok.
The movie is about a 21-year-old blonde girl named Elle Woods and her quest to win back the man who she believes to be her true love. The movie starts off with Elle and her then boyfriend Warner going on a date on which she believes he will propose to her, he does the opposite and breaks up with her because she is too blonde and he says he needs to marry somebody serious if he’s ever going to become a senator like the other men in his family. She leaves the restaurant crying and locks herself in her dorm for a week crying and eating until her two best friends eventually take her to get her nails done. After seeing a newspaper clipping with Warner’s brother and his fiancée she decides to attend Harvard Law School in order to prove that she can be serious and that she is worthy of marriage.
The story includes the murder of the millionaire Henthory Windham and the trial of his wife fitness enthusiast Brooke Windham who is 34 years younger and the primary suspect since she was seen standing over his dead body by his daughter and her “boyfriend” the pool boy Salvator. Brook also happens to have graduated from the same sorority Elle attended before leaving for Harvard. Elle goes to get Brooke’s alibi since she won’t speak to anybody else, it’s then revealed that Brooke won’t admit to where she was because she was getting liposuction and if the public finds out her career will be ruined. Once she returns Elle’s boss asks her what the alibi was however, she refused to reveal it since it was a private discussion between her and a client. This is would be considered confidentiality as it is considered malpractice to reveal a client’s private information to a third party or anybody, they request it not to be revealed to. After the witness testimony where Salvator claims to be having an affair with Brooke, Elle realizes that he’s gay when he is able to correctly identify the brand name of her heels. One of the defense lawyers uses this to get Salvator to admit to being gay while on the stand which invalidates his claims of an affair. During the testimony of the daughter, it is revealed that she was the one who shot her father and not her step mother because she was mad that her father would marry somebody her age.
At first, I thought I would hate the movie but as I watched it I realized it’s pretty good and it made me laugh a couple of times too. The movie opened my eyes too as it addressed real issues women face in a field like law which used to be dominated by men such as discrimination and sexual harassment. I say this because the law professor who had originally hired Elle revealed that he only did so because she thought she would be willing to sleep with him to further her career and once she declined he started saying that she would never be able to win the case simply because she’s just a dumb blonde. I bring this up because growing up I was used to seeing more women lawyers than men so something like that happening in a movie as lighthearted as this one really caught me off guard and showed me that if even a comedy movie brings it up it has to be a very common issue even in law.
