Harvard graduated lawyer Elle Woods is all set to come back in our lives! Big Little Lies star Reese Witherspoon may have come a long way from making cheesy (and immensely enjoyable) rom-coms but she has already reprised the role of seemingly-ditzy, gender-role smashing Elle Woods.
Shooting for the film hasn’t yet begun, but Witherspoon said she’s having a “great time” working on the script. And here’s why we think it’s an epic series that deserves to be at least a trilogy!
It challenged sexist tropes and turned them on its head
Dumb blonde jokes are still a thing but at least some people are woke enough to realise now that reductionist humour is lazy and does nothing more than stereotype people unfairly. Legally Blonde not only took on these dumb blonde jokes but also reverse sexist tropes related to women. Elle was a woman interested in “silly” things like fashion, makeup and shocking doses of pink on top of being blonde. From being considered a Capitol Barbie to solving a murder trial before taking on big corporates to outlaw animal testing – Elle’s journey shatters stereotypes all the way.
It was about a woman’s empowering journey to finding herself not landing the guy
When Elle became a successful lawyer, it lead to a feminist awakening in many young girls watching her journey from home. This film showed us the truth about fuckbois long before we even knew about the term’s existence. But most importantly, both the stories revolved around Elle empowering herself by having complete and total faith in her own capabilities when the whole world was out to prove her wrong. The men were almost like afterthoughts in her story.
It has always been a frikking fun watch!
Last but not the least, the films were (and still are) enormous amounts of silly fun. From Elle cracking one case by deducing that a character perjuring himself was gay because he could spot her Prada shoes from last season to her hinting at the possibility of landing up at the White House someday, the films never took themselves too seriously but managed to put their politics across successfully.
Hopefully the upcoming chapter will give us a woker, more relatable and mature Elle to champion.
