I’ve been thinking a lot about the character of the blonde popular bitch in teen movies. There are a lot of examples:
Regina George (Mean Girls), Sharpay Evans (High School Musical), Heather Chandler (Heathers), and Cher Horowitz (Clueless) just to make a few.
What is interesting is all of their characters are defined by three primary characteristics: being physically attractive, being ultra-feminine, and having ambition. Now what’s interesting is the first two characteristics are things that society likes in women, so in a typical story one would expect these characters to be treated as heros or at least love interests. But instead ¾ of these characters are either primary or secondary villains. Cher is the exception, being the protagonist of her movie, but many of her actions are vilified by the script so despite being the protagonist, it isn’t until the end that she is treated like a hero.
Why is this character type villainized?
The answer is that these characters are women who use the things that society likes in women (femininity, beauty) not for men, but for their own personal use. This goes back to the aforementioned ambition. These characters crave power, and are willing to work for it, more specifically, they are willing to use their ~feminine wiles~ to get it. By having this ultra masculine character trait, these characters are seen as villains when they perform simple acts like caring about their appearance, or being flirtatious. Traits like this, ambition, flirtation and even vanity are praised in male characters.
Many of the actions and personalities these women do/have are strikingly similar to many male anti heroes in action movies.
They are arrogant, clever, manipulative, self-aggrandizing, just like characters like Tony Stark, Loki, Han Solo and Deadpool. But whereas these anti heroes become lovable scoundrels with hearts of gold, these characters become the villains of their tales because they are teenage girls.
To me what this says is audiences and writers are fine with all the traits associated with ambition, they just aren’t fine when it’s associated with femininity. Because an ambitious clever man is a scoundrel, but an ambitious woman is a bitch.
As a little girl constantly seeing these characters portrayed as evil made me develop a really negative image of femininity. I wanted to think I was superior to other girls because I feel better presenting pretty masculine. I was really misogynistic to a lot of girls because of my preconceived notions about femininity equating to shallowness and bad intentions. I know there are a lot of gay/gnc girls that like me had similar misogynistic hang ups because of gender non conformity and that really sucks!
As such I think it’s really cool when movies subvert the blonde bitch trope. To some extent, Clueless did this, but I think a better example is Legally Blonde. Elle Woods is clearly ambitious and hard working, but she’s also a feminine pretty blonde woman. And she is absolutely the hero of her story, and she is able to succeed due to a combination of her femininity and her ambition without having to compromise either!
What, like it’s hard?
Allow women to be feminine and ambitious and written like heros!
I feel like not enough people appreciate how amazing legally blonde is so I am making a list of all the best things about it as I watch it.
1. the friendships. Damn they would all do anything for each other
2. she totally just sassed that store lady! dang can’t pull the wool over Elle’s eyes.
3. “I don’t need backups. I’m going to Harvard” She is so determined and she wont let anyone stop her she is such an icon
4. She legit just learnt law? Like she decided to do law and then she did it? She worked so DAMN HARD fuck yeah babe
5. A 179??? even Sam Winchester couldn’t do that oh shit girl
6. Created a line of faux fur panties to raise money! charitable and animal friendly. impressive.
7. “You got into Harvard law?”//“What like it’s hard?” :)
8. doesn’t tell them the alibi because she respect her friend too much and doesn’t want to betray her trust.
9. Makes friends with the girlfriend of her ex (eventually)
10. finds a man who treats her with the respect she deserves and who believes in her and supports her dreams <3
11. Helping Paulette from the nail bar to respect herself more and stand up for herself
12. When Callaghan is a dick she gets upset but then decides not to let him ruin it and continues to do what she loves and wins the case on her own.
13. She completely destroys the idea that you cant be pretty and smart. She did that. You can be more than one thing.
Yes she originally does it all to impress Warner but then when she realises he ever respected her and probably never would she decided to continue doing law not for anyone else but for her, because she wanted to. It is one of the first films to show a group of girls just being friends without all being bitchy to each other. Elle Woods is an icon of feminism and fashion. T H E P I N K
