this is stuff you like you can call me Ursa and today we're going to talk about
power sexual objectification and Legally Blonde to say that sexual
objectification is a difficult topic to talk about would be too vastly under
stay at the amount of bile backlash and just sheer BS that comes with talking
about it the basic principle is this from a very distressingly young age
girls find themselves more valued in certain circles for what they look like
rather than what they can do hence padded bikinis and the daily males
disturbing fascination with Suri Cruise like she's seven years old you guys this
is not okay and the problem with this aside from inappropriate sexual ization
of children which is a big problem but the problem with it more generally is
that a female person is therefore defined by their perceived sexual
availability by how much they are sexually objectified and now I'm going
to need to define my terms okay sexual objectification is the
process of representing or treating someone like a sex object and a sex
object is something that serves another person sexual pleasure and the problem
is not that looking nice is inherently bad because that would just be stupid
but that being a sex object is inherently disempowering and the more
you are sexually objectified the worse it is for you and the more you
internalize that objectification the worse it is for you because we have a
thing in western thinking called the subject object dichotomy if you are a
subject like in grammar if you are talking about the subject of the
sentence the subject of the sentence acts upon the object if you're the
subject you act if you are the object you are acted upon and the more you
internalize objectification the more you see yourself as an object you more you
see yourself as a helpless victim of circumstances someone who is acted upon
and not someone who can act and change the situation you do not believe in your
own intrinsic worth your validation comes from the validation that other
people give you and if you are taught properly
then you will view male attention as a precious finite resource
that you will hoard like a dragon hence female competition oh yeah we made
it to the movie eventually yes because in Legally Blonde our
protagonist L starts the movie engaging in a specific female competition of
course even at the start of the movie you have the seeds of her character
growth but we'll get to those her initial conflict is female competition
over male attention my boyfriend dumped me he doesn't take me seriously he has
hooked up with this other woman I wish for his undivided attention I will do
whatever it takes to get it modern cinema is very fond of girl fights for
this reason because self objectification leads to female competition because male
attention is the only thing that women could possibly want right also because
there's a few women in any given movie if they're rough age peers and they end
up either not meeting not speaking to each other or engaging in competition
there are awesome examples of female friendships in movies but they tend to
be for a younger audience see for example your Princess Diaries versus
your 13 going on 30 s or your Bride Wars or whatever little girls are still
allowed to be friends but adult women clubbing together is dicey and you can
see this in the real issue were like Anne Hathaway vs. Jennifer Lawrence they
are women they are rough age peers and they have different approaches to life
therefore we must know are you team and/or team Jennifer never mind that you
can like them both never mind that you know they might well be best friends in
real life I don't even know the important thing is not whether or not
there's actually a conflict there the important thing is making you pick a
side yeah which side are you on when Angelina Jolie married Brad Pitt and he
divorced Jennifer Aniston what team Wildcats no way no that's that's
something else never mind that other peoples and
parishes are none of your business you have to pick a side well screwed that
Legally Blonde just wants women to be friends even if it takes a little while
the plot it goeth thusly Elwood's is kind of a spoiled little rich girl and
also a perky blonde Californian fashion major with a boyfriend she thinks is
gonna propose idea breakup
what he instead dumps her right before they graduate to win him back she
applies to Harvard Law Elwood's welcome to Harvard and gets in but then finds
like once she's there that a law school is hard and B Werner got engaged to an
old girlfriend over the summer she has a pretty hard time at Vivian Warner's
fiance is pretty hard on her and then eventually she realizes I'm never gonna
be good enough for you am i and in one of my favorite moments in any non
exploding things film ever she's just like fine and decides to stop messing
around to get to work so she works really hard she shows a real aptitude
for law she gets an internship well because she's pretty but nonetheless she
gets the case against her client dismissed because you know she isn't
guilty in Ella's good at the lawyer she makes some friends she gets the guy I'm
the best friend you are the girl for me
I love you no Warner I've waited so long to hear
you say that but if I mean to be a partner in a law
firm by the time I'm 30 I need a boyfriend who's not such a complete
bonehead
her satisfaction you can see the seeds of Elle's transformation right from the
opening credits which intercuts of montage of L getting ready for her day
by painting her nails and brushing her hair and shaving her legs and whatever
with all of her sorority friends getting a card and signing it for her as a good
luck for her big date tonight thus we learned two things which will be
important one L takes fashion and beauty very seriously and two L is loved and
respected by the women in her life I mean yeah Warner is her boyfriend but
she is surrounded by women and the movie is full of them the thing is L could
easily self objectify and to a certain extent she does especially at the
beginning of the film thanks for inviting me girls this party is super
fun yeah there's that and also the whole bend and snap thing like what was that
specifically because they wanted to make a musical out of it later I don't know
but here's why I don't get up in arms over it although it does kind of baffle
me l purlins a very kind of third wave feminism approach to life we're doing
sexy things is a way to empower oneself and don't personally find that to be the
case but you know whatever works for her yay the difference I suppose is that I
view L as thinking of her actions as sexual she takes actions in line with
her sexuality rather than thinking of herself as sexy as in she is an object
to admire and this is one of the reasons it's very difficult to talk about
objectification because one woman's self objectification is another woman's
empowering action and then we get word like prude and slut-shaming thrown
around and there are caps locks everywhere it's just no good the point
on a personal level is this what does this do to me rather than what does this
do to society because while the societal aspect of objectification is very
important to each individual person self objectification isn't bad because
society deems it so self-objectification is bad because it
leads to depressed cognitive function disordered eating and depression
the key point not for society but for L for any individual is that L is a
subject not an object in this film L is either a participant in the action or
she is strenuously objecting to it I upset
she controls herself her whole self and that includes her sexuality and almost
all of her actions after her I'm never gonna be good enough for you realization
are a reflection of her as subject the way she does her hair and her makeup and
her clothes that isn't to impress the people on the East Coast but isn't to
impress the people at Harvard Law School because frankly they're just not
impressed by your pink dress she doesn't because makes her feel good
she likes fashion and beauty and she continues to like them in spite of their
implicit denigration by the people around her screw your rules about how
law students must act she's gonna do her own thing and in spite of this fact
she's going to make a really great lawyer
and she gets over her specific competition and that's important too at
the end of the movie we learned that Vivian and L are no BFFs Warner's been
dumped the manicurist who sells new friend hooks up with the mailman L
graduates in all as well I like Legally Blonde a lot because it's
funny and there are lots of women in it and while it does occasionally take
refuge in stereotypes its main character is not a stereotype she could so easily
have been made into the blonde who's dumb or bitchy or self-absorbed but
she's none of those things she's clever and she's pretty and she
seeks support from the women in her life and she gives support in return and all
of them are the arbiters of their own destinies and that's pretty freakin
awesome if you're going to let one stupid prick ruin your life
you're not the girl I thought you were and she is absolutely the girl that
Harvard's answer to McGonagall things she is water shy I'm Jill I'm Jade and
if you're wondering what this new show plus points is all about let us give you
an introduction I'm pretty sure there's nothing in here that says thou shalt
dress like a time-traveling escapee from Woodstock the story of Deborah or Joseph
or a hood jet is not about you not even if your name is Joseph not even if your
brothers Chuck you down a well and then sell you into slavery although I will
admit that would be fairly uncanny order all in the car
stop being jerks you're not really going to fall into the mouth of a giant
adulterous challenge it's all about bees no sweetie yes Obama is the Antichrist
Putin is the Antichrist my breakouts that is the Antichrist also I have
really interesting theory about bees that explain nothing never mind that
means they have to watch it
you