fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5993 ]

[ SECRET POST #5993 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5993 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #857.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I can't believe people still champion Legally Blonde as some kind of feminist masterpiece.

Like seriously, you mean the movie about the super rich super white girl who has the time to not work and study to get into law school which is all magically paid for then manages to win her first trial not through lawyering skill, but because the evil flamboyant latino man commented on her shoes by total chance and she deduced he must be gay from that then making drama in the courtroom about it is... girl... power? Proving you too can be smart even if you love hyper consumerist designer fashion? Won't anyone think about the multimillionaires?

I get it if people enjoy the movie as something dated but fun, or found it groundbreaking for its time, but anyone that calls this still relevant unironically... idk. Maybe they should rewatch the movie they claim to adore. It's some wealthy white feminism shit

Are you one of those people who hate Rocky Horror because it uses the word transvestite?

+ 1

I'm someone that would say that's not really comparable when white-and-often-wealthy-as-opposed-to-intersectional feminism is an actual recognized issue, and people rec this movie as a great feminist movie if it's still representational and progressive when it's not, unlike how they talk about RHCP which is cult classic and silly fun and a product of its time

As a non-white non-straight person I expected more from a "great feminist movie" rec and kinda think people that rec me this unironically are stuck in 90s feminism too

LOL my phone autocorrected RHPS to RHCP. I think you knew what I meant there.

AYRT

Unfortunately, it IS still good feminist representation and progressive. For fuck's sake, we've actually got backwards since the 90s. No one is reccing it as good intersectional feminism, and if that's what you're looking for, you're going to always be massively disappointed because there's no way you can fit all the boxes you seem to want ticked into a coherent movie. Plz rec me a movie with black african feminism, AND black american feminism, AND black english feminism, AND native american feminism, but also native mexican feminism, native canadian feminism, russian feminism, the various asian feminism: china, japan, SEA, tibet, india, etc etc etc.

Your dream movie is a mess, darling...Unless, it's not ALL the boxes that you want checked, just your own.

As a non-straight non-rich person myself, you can either admit that you think when someone says a movie is "feminist" that you expect to be the main character, or you can just admit that this movie may not be for you.

Yo... none of those things are what I said and not what intersectional feminism means. You are raging at a strawman.

Here's what the movie could have done better:
- not have Elle play rich white savior to the poor people
- maybe even have Elle recognize how privileged she is and how other women with equal drive and girl power don't get the extremely lucky circumstances she was born into
- not have the lesbian announce she's a lesbian for diversity points and only exist to show Elle would never call someone a dyke, then basically disappear
- not made the entire plot hinge on an awful gay male stereotype of latino men which also cheapens the plot because it made Elle win on luck, not smarts, unless you count making a random guess that some guy is gay based on his comments about shoes to be educated, lawyerly deduction

This doesn't mean the movie had to unreasonably focus on black English feminism while being set in the US. It just had to NOT use stepping over other oppressed groups to raise up wealthy white women.

*achem* "Intersectional feminism takes into account the many different ways each woman experiences discrimination." I could argue here that the movie does, between Elle (dumb blonde), and Vivienne (MRS degree), and Paulette (domestic abuse), and Brooke (gold digger). We also have at least two people who come from poor origins/are still poor, so the only part of your complaint that makes sense is the race. In which case, I have to again ask, which one? Cause if you only do two, I can complain that it doesn't take into account another and another and another and another. You have to draw the line somewhere and this story, for what it was trying to do (comedy) at the time (pre-911) and place (Harvard), in the time it was made (90s), works best with white people. Doing black girl fish-out-of-water amongst old money whites is not a comedy. They wouldn't troll her by telling her it was a costume party, they would just leave their laundry outside her door. And that's not a comdey, that's a drama.

That's exactly what you said:

"I'm someone that would say that's not really comparable when white-and-often-wealthy-as-opposed-to-intersectional feminism is an actual recognized issue,"

And it's not trying to be intersectional on race. Like I said, if you want a movie to reflect the "actual recognized issue"' you're in for a world of disappointment, cause they may just choose cultures that aren't yours.

"and people rec this movie as a great feminist movie if it's still representational and progressive when it's not"

My sister can't get an abortion anymore, and they're trying to kill no fault divorce. I think a woman discovering her love for being a lawyer and not being forced into babymaking and marriage TO a lawyer is starting to look pretty progressive again.

"unlike how they talk about RHCP which is cult classic and silly fun and a product of its time"

Normal people, sure. But there's a ton of babygays who think RHPC should be cancelled because it uses the word "transvestite". Which is why I and the other anon up there compared you to them, because you're basically doing the same thing.

"As a non-white non-straight person I expected more from a "great feminist movie" rec and kinda think people that rec me this unironically are stuck in 90s feminism too."

I hope you don't complain like this to the people who actually rec you movies, cause, you know, sometimes people's taste differs. If you had just said you didn't like it, I would have shrugged and moved on, but you tried to make it "bad" by making shit up and I can't abide someone being wrong on the internet.

So:

- not have Elle play rich white savior to the poor people

She doesn't. The only "poor person" she "plays savior" to is her friend from the salon. She helps her because she's her friend, not because she's poor. Her classmates are rich, her client is rich, her enemies are rich. Her actual friend is poor.

- maybe even have Elle recognize how privileged she is and how other women with equal drive and girl power don't get the extremely lucky circumstances she was born into

She does. Again with her friend, she uses the fact that she has the ability to make up legit legal-sounding bullshit to help her friend get her dog back. She recognizes the circumstances her friend is in and tries to provide only solutions that her friend ACTUALLY has access to. She doesn't tell her to spend money she doesn't have on a lawyer. When her friend wants to flirt with the mailman, she gives her actual flirting tips and doesn't tell her to again spend money she doesn't have on better clothes, make up, styling, etc.

She also, and this might come as a shock to you, recognizes the ways she DOESN'T have privilege. She does NOT fit in at Harvard, which is full of old money snobs who don't take her seriously because she's a new money blonde valley girl.

- not have the lesbian announce she's a lesbian for diversity points and only exist to show Elle would never call someone a dyke, then basically disappear

Disappear? We saw her graduate. This specific character has been cited as being inspiring for actual real life lesbians to go into law.

- not made the entire plot hinge on an awful gay male stereotype of latino men which also cheapens the plot because it made Elle win on luck, not smarts, unless you count making a random guess that some guy is gay based on his comments about shoes to be educated, lawyerly deduction

Were you born in the 90s or something and missed the entirety of the culture then? Cause that was a Thing that they were making fun of here. It was in a lot of tv shows and movies, not exactly tastefully even at the time, but the depiction in LB was played way over the top for laughs. And sure, you can cry that doing that is homophobic or whatever, but that kinda was the point.

Also, the entire plot does not HINGE on this, the trial is not the plot of the movie. The plot of the movie is Elle discovering that the people with actual power do not take her seriously and do not want to share that power with her. The plot of the movie is Elle TAKING that power by beating them at their own game and the pivotal moment is not that there's a flamboyant evil gay,. It's that all the things that she was derided for, that she was mocked for, the very reason people would not take her seriously was how she was going to take power. Her knowledge was useful and critical. Her different, pink, blonde, unapologetically feminine view point was essential to justice.

Did you even watch the movie??

Excellently said!

I think Legally Blonde has a lot of parts that didn't agw well, but I'd bet you a year's worth of Harvard tuition that AYRT has no complaints about anti-racist movies that are all about men and don't address their male privilege over WOC.

They'd also never insinuate that a rich, attractive, cishet black man doesn't really have to deal with racism in any meaningful way.

Eh, you'd lose that bet.

Sorry if I'm not really up to engaging with the other anon that is accusing me of literally not having watched the movie because more of it felt jarring and outdated than empowering to me, and keeps insinuating that I am a babygay who demands everything be about meee (or black English feminism or indigenous Australian feminism or other extreme strawmen) while oof, condescendingly calling me darling and making sarcastic throat clearing noises, just for acknowledging the problematic and outdated parts of the movie, which they seem to be either oblivious to or okay with excusing because such were the times.

Calling Legally Blonde super white and super rich is just... true. Note that I never said the movie should be about, or feature black people; that is the automatic assumption and demand that anon made, because... I'm not sure why, perhaps in their mind, the only way for a movie to not be painfully white with only stereotypical tokens of everything everywhere else is to be actively black. Which is also not true??

When I say people are stuck in the 90s this is a good example of what I mean. I say this as a person who was born before the 90s, too.

Legally Blonde did some things well. It did other things not so well. Reviewing it from a modern setting, it stepped on other groups to do those things, which is not a great look and should absolutely be warned for when reccing the movie to others because it sure blindsided me when it was recced to me as "a feminist masterpiece" and I see these things in it.

I'm not particularly interested in debating this with someone who won't look at the movie critically, though. You know, as we should with all media.

DA Just because someone doesn't agree with you about something does not mean they aren't looking at it critically.

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[ SECRET POST #5993 ]

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