Watched: Legally Blonde
This was not what I was expecting. I anticipated a film with a feminist core but also a handful of stereotypes and lazy portrayals of other groups, because it’s a film about “being yourself” starring a rich white American woman, and while that could be a more worrisome formula (it could be a rich white American man), it’s still a narrative that Hollywood tends to pack with awful writing. I was pleasantly surprised: aside from a couple of gay jokes that were a little cheap, this was delightfully positive, lacking any cattiness, and very funny to boot. Reese Witherspoon is aggressively sweet without being cloying, and the surrounding cast (Oz Perkins in particular, but everyone shines) are more than complementary.
There were times when it was a little simplistic - the rule of law as dictated by Elle Woods is more of a Hollywood rulebook than anything practical - but the heart of this film shines through without making you feel tainted. Someone put Katherine Heigl in a theater and show her this while whispering “you’re wasting your career”.