A Critical Analysis Of Legally Blonde: The Musical

Legally Blonde: The Musical, is a hugely feminist contemporary piece and destroys and subverts many of the patriarchal ideologies that are inherent in our society and our media. It starts as a love story, as Elle, our blonde and bubbly protagonist, follows her asshole of an ex boyfriend to Harvard after he breaks up with her for not being serious enough for him. She takes the LSATS until she gets 175, an incredibly high score, but only gets into Harvard after professing her love for Warner and begging the administration to let her in due to love. She sings “don 't say no to a woman in love, don 't laugh when I say love” and convinces the administration to admit her. At Harvard, she is discriminated against for her femininity, her love of pink,

The clear path to success for her is to discard her aspects of femininity and focus on making the grade. She does this, and is chosen for the prestigious internship held by her law professor. He later sexually assaults her and tells her that he only hired her because he thought she was attractive. She tries to leave law school, finding this to be the final straw, and only stays with the support of her friends. Emmett, a recent graduate who supports her law school endeavors and encourages her to study and fit in, falls in love with her, and tries to get her to stay for him. When looked at directly, none of this seems particularly feminist, and at first glance, it isn’t. But at second glance, it can be seen that everyone who makes active choices are women. The women in this play support each other instead of tearing each other down, and aspects of knowledge that are considered feminine, (and therefore weaker), are explicitly utilized to solve problems that the straight and narrow law school path

It can be assumed that there’s nothing feminist at all about this show, and it’s about “dumb blonde sorority girls dancing around a stage.” It of course, subverts this ideology, showing a deep well of both feminist power and internal strength within a woman who is unwilling to compromise on her femininity. Elle is a bubbly pink-wearing blonde sorority girl who also happens to be a feminist and shows the audience that these two things need not contradict each other. Elle shows her intellectual prowess very early in the show, and in a quintessentially feminine setting. It’s important to note here that nothing Elle does is masculine. She never resorts to being less pretty, less pink, she is essentially feminine, and still a feminist, something that’s astonishingly lacking within feminist media. Our first view of Elle is seeing her shop for a “proposal dress”, as she assumes her boyfriend will be proposing to her soon and wants the dress for the occasion. As she’s in the mall, a female sales associate tries to cheat her for a higher commission, showing her a sale dress from last year and presenting it as a new dress. The sales associate, in an affirmation of mainstream patriarchal values, is trying to get more money out of Elle, a fellow woman, because she sees women as lesser, less able to recognize a fraud, and definitely more likely to just buy the dress instead of