Legally Blonde Symbolism

In 2001, Reese Witherspoon starred in box-office success Legally Blonde, a movie about a superficial sorority girl’s ascent to become valedictorian of Harvard Law School. Many regard this movie as a fun and light “feel-good” watch. While there is no disagreement that this movie is an easy watch, it holds much more meaning than appears on the surface. Elle is a kind, hard-working, and multi-faceted character, and serves as an inspiration to audiences. Further still, Legally Blonde, features metaphysical themes like fate, free will, determinism, objective truth, and the conflict between appearance and reality, throughout the movie. The movie’s content is much more complex than it seems at first glance, just like the protagonist, Elle Woods herself.

She wishes to rekindle her relationship with Warner by proving to him that she can also be “serious”, so applies to attend Harvard. As a result of her time at Harvard, she undergoes important character growth and finds that she loves and excels in her new profession. The underlying metaphysical question is this: did fate intend Elle to attend Harvard Law School, or did she attend Harvard out of her own will? Determinism is the idea that human beings have no free will, and all events and actions occur because of events outside of a human free will. There are different forms of determinism. Environmental determinists believe one’s environment impacts his or her actions. For instance, Elle was in a specific situation (her boyfriend left her to study at Harvard Law) so she changed her actions which affected her outcome. Biological determinists believe people are hard-wired to make certain decisions. For instance, Elle’s biology caused her to make every decision in her life, which eventually led to her outcome (McLeod,

One existentialist, Sartre, would argue that because Elle’s existence preceded her essence, she had free will over her actions, and therefore chose her outcome. While Elle could not choose her circumstance, she did choose to attend law school out of her own free will, and never views her time in law school as “fate” or “meant to be”. She views it simply as something she did out of her own ability and work ethic. This contrasts her with Warner, who believes life happens to him and that he “doesn’t have a choice” to end his relationship with Elle. Yet, he does choose to satisfy his family’s expectations over keeping his relationship with Elle. Although his family may influence him, he makes his choices - no one else does. Consequences do not equal coercion. Although Elle worked hard for her admittance into Harvard law school, she is not the sole person responsible for her fate. Warner’s decision did influence hers, and she could not attend Harvard if the admissions committee did not accept her. Thus, Legally Blonde shows audiences that fate and free will work in tandem to impact lives. One cannot control what happens to his or her own life - this is how fate impacts people’s lives - but one can control how he or she responds to events, showing that humans do have free will. If humans really choose their own values and essence, as Sartre postulates, then