Gender Stereotypes In The Movie Legally Blonde

In many movies about college life, women are seen as prizes. They are background characters, there to support the men playing the leading roles and to be used whenever the men please. Women are seen as accessories and trophies and not as actual intellectual beings. Coming into college, I was aware that women are not held to this standard anymore, but I was still worried that some people would continue to not take women seriously.
Even as late as 2001, gender stereotypes persisted in film and in the media. In the movie Legally Blonde, starring Reese Witherspoon, Elle Woods gets dumped by her scholarly boyfriend because he wants a “serious relationship” with an educated and successful sorority president. Elle Woods is at first portrayed as a
In my experience at college so far, Greek Life doesn’t cater to the girls who are concerned with just their look or finding a man, but lifts up those girls who want to learn leadership skills, make connections, and have been successful in the past. While it’s true that Greek Life has a party scene, mainstream movies like House Bunny and Animal House ignore women’s focus on academics and only focus on their “obsession” with becoming desirable to men. In contrast, in the movie Legally Blonde, Elle Woods proves that even though she does care about her appearance, she is still smart and hard-working. Just because she is blonde and part of a sisterhood doesn’t mean that she can’t be just as successful as her ex-boyfriend. While the movie is definitely forward thinking, I still found it sad that she decided to do better for herself in order to pursue whom she thought was the love of her life. It’s interesting that she only decided to apply to Harvard Law because she wanted to prove to Warner that she could be a serious girlfriend. What I liked about this movie is that it depicted the sleepless nights and hard work that Elle had to do in order for her to pass her LCAT and get into Harvard Law, most of which mainstream movies decide to ignore. In House Bunny, you never see the girls do work, and instead we watch scene after scene as they party and improve their appearance and/or public