Legally a Heroine

Hey guys! Welcome back for the third blog post for this semester! Today I will talk about how the movie Legally Blond follows the Heroine's Journey pattern and how this can help us better understand the narrative as it progresses. This movie follows this pattern almost perfectly, with all 9 stages clearly identifiable throughout the story. Looking at this movie through the lens of Victoria Linn Schmidt's Heroine's Journey allows you to better understand the events that happen throughout, as well as the character development of Elle.

To begin, let's look at the stages of the Heroine's Journey. First, "The Illusion of the Perfect World." This stage is fairly straightforward to identify at the beginning of the movie. She is happy with her boyfriend, everyone likes her, and she thinks nothing can go wrong. Then, very soon after this part, we see "The Betrayal or Realisation" stage, where her boyfriend breaks up with her to go to law school, which causes her whole life to fall apart. She begins to feel inadequate and wants to do everything she can to prove to her boyfriend that she is the person he wants. She applies and gets into law school, where we see "The Awakening and Preparing for the Journey" stage. However, she finds that when she gets into law school, most people do not like her the way they used to back in California. She is judged and criticized, symbolizing "The Descent - Passing the Gates of Judgement" Stage.

This is about the halfway point in the story, and I hope you can agree with how well it is following so far. The next stage is "The Eye of the Storm," where the main character has brief success but will soon face a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. This happens when Elle gets into the internship program and is doing well there. She demonstrates her skill by getting the witness to admit being gay, thereby removing the credibility of his testimony. However, this is followed soon after by the head of the organization, Callahan, attempting to hit on her. She believes she only got into the program because he was attracted to her and felt she didn't belong. This part is the "Death - All is Lost" stage, remarkably similar to the first half apotheosis stage in the hero's journey. The second half comes right after with the "Support" and "Rebirth - the Moment of Truth" stage. This is shown in the story in an unlikely meeting between Elle and one of her teachers that did not seem to like her. She convinces her that she should not put so much stake in what Callahan did because she already proved herself a good lawyer and simply needed to show that. She does exactly that, replacing Callahan as her client's lawyer and winning the case, displaying the Rebirth stage. After this, the story begins to wind down, and she finds herself again in a perfect world, having gone through this conflict. The movie even ends with the same song it began with, demonstrating the cycle in which Elle has gone.

This movie is a near-perfect example of Victoria Linn Schmidt's Heroine's journey. All the stages are very clearly identifiable throughout the story. This allows the viewer to better follow and interpret the story through this lens. Elle's development and the introduction of the characters make perfect sense when viewed as a Heroine's Journey. Overall, this is important because it allows the viewer to better understand the story as a whole, as well as enjoy the story of Elle as she overcomes seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become a lawyer.