Stereotypes In The Movie Legally Blonde

Stereotypes are oversimplified images assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality, and culture. Stereotypes generalize groups of people in ways that lead to ignorance to diversity within a community. Many people can be stereotyped in ways that sometimes are valid or invalid. Some common stereotypes within today's society are as follows: blondes are dumb, all Mexicans are lazy and come to America illegally, or all African-Americans are criminals. An excellent contemporary piece of fictional media that defies widely accepted stereotypes is a movie entitled Legally Blonde. Legally Blonde’s central idea is that if one is a woman, more specifically a blonde woman, they are automatically categorized as being dumb. Elle Woods,

the protagonist, is a blonde woman who is stereotyped as inferior due to her hair color and demeanor; since she is blonde, everyone underestimates her capabilities and does not take her seriously. Similarly, “American Dreams” a short essay by Kevin Jennings, also contains invalid stereotypes. Jennings conveys how he is lost in his own identity and does not know how to categorize himself, as he is gay and hails from Lewisville, North Carolina. Both being gay and coming from a southern heritage attract equally damaging stereotypes, as gay people are commonly frowned upon and the accents of southerns are ridiculed. Another text that highlights people’s change in identity due to stereotyping is Jean Aymar Christian’s article “The End of Post-Identity Television.” Christian’s main argument is that being different is okay because everyone is unique with their own experiences and culture. Christian believes individuals have long ignored the fact that everyone was unique and different in their own way because if someone pointed out someone's differences, they were seen as being prejudice, but he argues that people can embrace differences without excluding someone or categorizing them as other. The stereotypes established towards certain individuals can have harmful results as most stereotypes unfairly generalize and degrade people from what they truly are.
The stereotype of a girl with blonde hair or an individual of southern heritage being incompetent is degrading and inaccurate, as both stereotypes are combatted through Elle Wood’s character in Legally Blonde and through Jenning’s article. In the beginning of the movie, Elle was preparing to go on a date with Warner, so she went shopping for a new dress in order to impress him with her appearance. When Elle was looking for a nice dress one of the store clerks whispered to another employee “there is nothing I love more than a dumb blonde with daddy's plastic” and went up to Elle and offered her a dress to buy. Upon seeing her hair color, the store clerk assumes she can trick Elle into blindly buying an inaccurately labeled, overtly expensive dress. The store clerk knowingly stereotypes Elle as being dumb and takes advantage of her ditzy disposition, which is indecent and immoral. After assuming Elle to be dumb strictly because of her hair color, the clerk took the opportunity to rip off the dresses price tag in order to sell Elle the dress for a more expensive price without her realizing. Elle’s actions and behavior fulfilled her stereotype and gender image understood by most. People associate her with being a dumb blonde by the way she dresses, speaks and looks, and she knowingly assumes that role for people because she likes the ‘special’ attention. Just as women with blonde hair are thought to be dumb, people from the south are also called dumb. As he speaks of the stereotype associated with southerners, Jenning states, “I began to realize that we Southerners were different. Our home cooked meals--grits, turnip greens, red-eye gravy--never seemed to show up in frozen dinners, and if a character on television spoke with a southern accent, that immediately identified him or her as stupid or as a comic relief” (521). Due to the effect of someone having a southern accent people automatically think that they are uneducated and stupid. The fact that Jenning has a southern accent, made him escape from his identity and “[run] away as far from Lewisville, North Carolina, as [he] could” (521). Stereotypes degrade people and unfairly categorize individuals into one generalized group. These stereotypes are inaccurate because no one is the same as someone else, as proven through Christian’s essay: “Everyone is different” (557). Individuals typically categorize one person's personality based off of a generalized stigma of an entire group, which then becomes a stereotype for everyone; however, such stereotypes are typically proven wrong.
Homosexual individuals are not granted the same rights as hetrosexual individuals, leading people to develop negative stereotypes about homosexuals in general. In Legally Blonde, a gay character, who is named Enrique, claims that he is with Mrs. Windham so Chutney, Mr. Windham’s daughter, is not proven guilty. Elle finds out that he is gay because he insults her by telling her that she has last season prada shoes on. Elle then concludes that he is gay because she says “gay men know designers, straight men don't.” Here Elle is stereotyping gay people because she is categorizing all gay men to one specific trait and straight men to another trait. Homosexuals are mainly frowned upon by society for diverging from what society typically expects of them even though they are still regular human beings. Likewise, Jenning’s work portrays homosexuallity as “twisted perverts destined for a lifetime of eternal damnation” (521). Throughout his childhood, Jenning is exposed to ideas that homosexualty is atrocios and sinful, which leads him to hide from his own identity. Jennings started to shift away from his identity and acted upon the stereotype that he created for straight men just to fit in. He says, “I dated every girl I could literally get my hands on, earning a well-deserved reputation as a jerk who tried to see how far he could get on the first date. I attacked anyone who suggested that gay people might be entitled to some rights too and was the biggest teller of fag jokes at Radford High” (522). Here, Jenning is stereotyping what he anticipates all straight men to be by pretending to be around woman and criticising gay men despite being homosexual. Jenning denies his true identity for he fears society will misjudge him based on his divergence from what society ultimately expects. The negative effects of stereotyping a person based on their identity results in mental instability as they deny their true self.
When women and men are viewed in a professional atmosphere, men are portrayed as being more successful at the work than women are, as shown through Elle’s defiance of the stereotype in court.

Throughout Jenning’s essay, examples introduce how the media portrays masculine dominance over women, he says, “most women aren't able to conquer the workplace with such elegance and ease” (557). Individuals believe this idea because most men are illustrated as masculine individuals who complete their work better and quicker compared to women. This stereotype depicts men as being superior towards women despite both genders having equal capabilities in completing any task. This connotation applies to Legally Blonde. At the end of the movie, Elle’s professor, Professor Callahan, needs help on a murder case, therefore, he selects Elle as one of his interns on the case just because he thinks she's pretty. He neither takes her seriously nor acknowledges her intellectual capabilities; he just wants to get closer to her. The murder case that he selected Elle in involves Mrs. Windham, who is being accused of murdering her husband. When the time of trial comes Mrs. Windham fires Mr. Callahan and chooses Elle as her new legal counsel. When Mrs. Windham chooses Elle to represent her case everyone laughs at the decision she makes and most people think that she will lose the case because Elle is too girly and too blonde to win the case for her. Mr. Callahan even says, “enjoy prison” to Mrs. Windham. Everyone got shocked at the fact that she fires a man and hires a woman instead. Elle justifies the invalidity of the stereotype when she acquits all charges for Mrs.Windham’s due to her personal experiences that other individuals may have not experienced which leads to Mrs. Windham winning the

case.
The negative effects of stereotypes towards an individual are validated throughout the works of, Legally Blonde, “American Dreams” and “The End to Post- Identity” as seen in the way stereotyping agonize the protagonist. Stereotypes are typically general and inaccurate yet their consequences can immensely cripple a person’s emotional stability. When Elle’s intelligence is belittled due to her ditzy appearance, she takes the stereotypes genertaed about her to heart and reconstructs her identity. Instead of individuals focusing on all the mistakes a person does, one should start paying more attention of how unique each person is. Stereotyping causes people to feel lonely and even sometimes depressed in accordance with Elle’s, Jenning, and Christians experiences. Even though one can be a victim of a stereotype, individuals should keep stereotypes out of the picture and embrace who they are.