I am not highly femme, I resisted and still resist a lot of markers of femininity, and with that resistance came a certain derision of those who chose to participate in them. Growing into adulthood as a woman and a feminist has been about reconsidering this stance and respecting other people's choices.
This. A thousand times, this! (Though I think my base level of "femme" has always been a bit higher than I ever liked to let on.) Part of being more at home in myself was learning to embrace the "girly" stuff when I felt the desire to do so. And as you say, there is a direct connection here between the social pressures to discount the traditionally "feminine" and my own impulse to avoid those things, to discount them. I especially spent a lot of energy wanting men to take me seriously (on a platonic level). I don't really think I had many successful female friendships until I was an adult.
One of the things I like best about Legally Blonde is that it's kind of a filmic incarnation of these social tendencies -- that most people aren't interested in it because it seems like one kind of film (girly, frivolous, vapid even) and that when you actually watch it, you find out that it might have some of the surface qualities you expected, but there's this whole other thing going on underneath that. I kind of love that it's sort of sneaky that way.
I have always felt that the ending includes Elle's successful romantic pairing as a kind of secondary element -- it's there because the structure of the film (the structure that is playing off all of these surface assumptions we're likely to make about the film) dictates it. But it's not the sole goal of the narrative line, and I feel that even though Elle moves toward that, it's very much on her own terms and actively chosen. (As opposed to just being The Thing That Happens.) If that line of thought makes sense.
Also, Selma Blair! And Linda Cardellini!! I basically adore everyone in this movie.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-03-28 07:15 pm (UTC)This. A thousand times, this! (Though I think my base level of "femme" has always been a bit higher than I ever liked to let on.) Part of being more at home in myself was learning to embrace the "girly" stuff when I felt the desire to do so. And as you say, there is a direct connection here between the social pressures to discount the traditionally "feminine" and my own impulse to avoid those things, to discount them. I especially spent a lot of energy wanting men to take me seriously (on a platonic level). I don't really think I had many successful female friendships until I was an adult.
One of the things I like best about Legally Blonde is that it's kind of a filmic incarnation of these social tendencies -- that most people aren't interested in it because it seems like one kind of film (girly, frivolous, vapid even) and that when you actually watch it, you find out that it might have some of the surface qualities you expected, but there's this whole other thing going on underneath that. I kind of love that it's sort of sneaky that way.
I have always felt that the ending includes Elle's successful romantic pairing as a kind of secondary element -- it's there because the structure of the film (the structure that is playing off all of these surface assumptions we're likely to make about the film) dictates it. But it's not the sole goal of the narrative line, and I feel that even though Elle moves toward that, it's very much on her own terms and actively chosen. (As opposed to just being The Thing That Happens.) If that line of thought makes sense.
Also, Selma Blair! And Linda Cardellini!! I basically adore everyone in this movie.