The Case for Legally Blonde
Musical Theatre History & Repertoire, Fall 2021
On April 29th, 2007, Legally Blonde: The Musical opened at the Palace Theatre on Broadway. Critics gave it mixed reviews and the show, despite receiving 7 Tony nominations, won none. Additionally, its box office numbers were considered lackluster, though the musical joined the “millionaire’s club” (having grossed over $1 million in ticket sales) less than two months after its opening (MTI). It’s easy to look at this perceived commercial failure and brush it off as yet another shallow attempt at generating profit from a household name. However, Legally Blonde made significant strides in connecting a wider audience to Broadway via mainstream pop culture. It wasn’t the first movie-to-musical adaptation, but it certainly brought the form into the 21st century with style.
Critics have analyzed and re-analyzed the film version of Legally Blonde in terms of its content, messages, and handling of social issues. Many have clashing opinions, but the general consensus is that, for a “chick flick” released in 2001, it was progressive in a number of ways—however, it was reductive in others. It’s important to note that the cast of Legally Blonde is almost entirely white, with underdeveloped BIPOC characters who are too often the butt of the joke. Additionally, it imposes harmful stereotypes on its LGBTQ+ characters. However, this film told its audiences that there is great value in a woman’s independence, and that femininity and intelligence aren’t mutually exclusive. The film’s screenwriter, Kirsten Smith, said that “It was the right feminist message and character to land when it did. It wears its desires on its sleeve: the contradiction [that] you can be a woman who’s fighting to be heard with a very clear point of view, who’s very strong and smart and also funny, fun and interested in different things, fashion and the law” (Smith). Though it’s been compared to the 1995 film Clueless for multiple reasons, Hillary Radner makes an interesting point:
‘Legally Blonde’ moves the heroine outside the typical marriage plot; while benign, Elle’s family exerts little influence on her. More importantly, the film undermines the fundamental assumption of the marriage plot — that a woman may best fulfill her destiny by marrying...Romance and marriage, while providing the pretext for the plot and Elle’s quest for success, are soon superseded by Elle’s desire to prove herself to her own satisfaction in the new and untried arena of Harvard Law School (Radner 68).
The “marriage plot” in question is that of Jane Austen’s Emma, which Clueless cites as its source material. A story in which a woman’s marriage is her happy ending (and in which the entire plot revolves around this idea) has been standard in the majority of media about women for ages. While Clueless frames its protagonist’s successful romance as her happy ending as opposed to her personal growth, Legally Blonde sees Elle progress from being dead-set on getting her boyfriend back to discovering her legal savvy and graduating Harvard Law School with honors. Additionally, “unlike the typical heroine of the girly film, Elle does not undergo an obvious transformation or makeover, although her look changes throughout the film, and her clothes have a significant role in it” (Radner 69). Elle’s growth doesn’t mean that she has to stop wearing makeup and “girly” clothes—instead, she comes to embrace her expression of femininity as an asset to her success. During the trial in which Elle successfully frees an innocent client accused of murder, she wears a fabulous pink ensemble and uses her knowledge of perm maintenance to catch the actual murderer in a lie.
The musical adaptation of Legally Blonde came in 2007, 6 years after its release. As is apparent with more recent musical adaptations of movies, such as Mean Girls and Moulin Rouge, there is often a wider time gap between a musical and its source material. Legally Blonde smartly used the film’s lasting popularity as a way to generate buzz and bring in audience members. “Real” Broadway musicals can feel alienating to tourists who wouldn’t otherwise consume much theatre. However, using a widely loved story gives audiences of many backgrounds a sense of familiarity and even nostalgia. A Variety review argued that “‘Legally Blonde’ composer-lyricists Laurence O’Keefe (‘Bat Boy’) and Nell Benjamin utilize the pop, R&B and hip-hop party sounds of recent MTV decades to enjoyably semi-satirical ends...On first listen, the songs don’t impress as being worth much repetition outside the show’s infectious performance context. Still, they are facile and ironic in the right way, with lyrics (like the dialogue in Heather Bach’s book) that are often very funny” (Harvey). On that note, musicals don’t always need to be serious or make us rethink the meaning of life! Sometimes, it is enough for a Broadway show to ground itself in spectacle and send its audience away having given them a good message and an enjoyable experience. Legally Blonde set a precedent for many subsequent adaptations, especially as popular music styles have become more prominent in new musicals. It even reached the top of Billboard’s musical theatre chart in July 2007, making it one of four albums to unseat Wicked from the #1 spot (Hernandez). Using energetic pop music and an infinitely quotable script, Legally Blonde re-defined the movie-to-musical adaptation, and its impact is clearer than ever in the current Broadway landscape, for better or for worse.
To boost the show’s popularity and, in turn, its ticket sales, Legally Blonde’s producers partnered with MTV to have the show filmed and aired on television. This was an incredibly smart move on the team’s part. In fact, “Legally Blonde received a box-office boost following the television broadcast of the musical in its entirety on MTV. The MTV presentation drew a reported 12.5 million viewers for its weekend of airings” (Hetrick). This further makes the case for the show’s accessibility—very few Broadway musicals are filmed and made available to audiences, and even most of those exist behind a PBS or Broadway HD subscription. Legally Blonde’s pro-shot, however, reached millions of viewers and is available on YouTube to this day (albeit at a lower quality than its original broadcast). However, where the broadcast proved especially beneficial was on tour. It was even under-booked in some cities. Variety writer Chris Jones said that “The boffo road grosses are especially noteworthy because ‘Legally Blonde’ got mixed reviews and no Tony love on Broadway, where it did not fully recoup its investment. In New York, it was perceived as yet another teen-oriented musical fueled by mass culture” (Jones). Critics made a mistake in writing the show off as shallow—the tour following the show’s Broadway run was markedly more successful because it appealed to teens and “mass culture.” Again, a familiar, feel-good story goes a long way with American audiences and improves accessibility, especially for those who might not get the chance to travel to New York and see shows.
Undoubtedly one of the most memorable outcomes of the musical was its accompanying MTV show. By this time, MTV had gained a reputation for its reality shows, most notably The Real World, The Hills, and MTV Cribs. Additionally, the perceived value of unscripted reality television had gone up in the wake of the winter 2007-2008 writers’ strike. One of the musical’s producers who later became an executive producer of the TV series said, “The Grease thing [NBC’s Grease: You’re the One That I Want!] had happened, but this was more like MTV—more they all lived together. And this would show how hard it was to be on Broadway” (Lipitz). The judge panel included Bernie Telsey (the musical’s casting director), Heather Hach (wrote its book), and Paul Canaan (beloved ensemble member). Unlike You’re the One That I Want, Legally Blonde: The Musical – The Search for Elle Woods (a mouthful of a title!), was seeking a replacement for Laura Bell Bundy rather than an original lead. The show proved to be a treat for any Legally Blonde fan—each episode saw the girls proving whether they had what it takes to be on Broadway, participating in Elle Woods-esque activities, and even getting to meet members of the original Broadway cast. And virtually everything was pink! The stakes were high, since any girl succeeding Laura Bell Bundy would have big shoes to fill. This added to the excitement of watching young women, both working actresses and amateurs, taking on the tasks that would be demanded of them in playing Elle Woods. Series winner Bailey Hanks only occupied the role for a few months before the musical closed in late October that year, but several actresses who appeared on the show have gone on to build impressive careers in entertainment. Chris Jones also pointed out that “the show was broadcast toward the end of the New York run. It thus did little for the Broadway box office. But the timing has been huge for the road” (Jones). How exciting to have watched the television show at home, and then to see it live in your hometown!
With all this being said, the musical is also not immune to criticism. A New York Times theatre critic pointed out that “Among Elle’s Harvard classmates is a dowdy lesbian (played by Natalie Joy Johnson), who is routinely the object of the show’s most unsavory jokes. Which makes you wonder uneasily if the message of ‘Legally Blonde’ isn’t just that it’s O.K. to be pretty, but that it’s not O.K. not to be” (Brantley). Additionally, courtroom ensemble number “Gay or European” revolves around speculation about whether a witness’s effeminate behavior and style means he’s gay (disproving his claim of an affair with the accused Brooke Wyndham) or European (we end the number having learned that he is, in fact, both). Furthermore, productions of Legally Blonde continue to cast almost exclusively white actors, despite the fact that casting BIPOC actors in any number of roles would add depth to the story and allow a significantly wider range of audiences to see themselves represented on stage. The examination of a Broadway musical must always be done with nuance—it is essential that, in building media literacy, audiences learn that even the things we love most can be deeply flawed. Though Legally Blonde: The Musical is nowhere near perfect, it contains value in both its story and cultural impact, and was unfairly panned by many a Broadway critic. Its continuing influence on musical theatre and its accessibility have made Legally Blonde nothing less than a staple.
Works Cited
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Brantley, Ben. “Candy Worship in the Temple of the Prom Queen.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Apr. 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/theater/reviews/30blon.html.
Hammonds, Rebecca K. Bookish Women: Examining the Textual and Embodied Construction of Scholarly and Literary Women in American Musicals, Bowling Green State University, Ann Arbor, 2019. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/bookish-women-examining-textual-embodied/docview/2457696404/se-2?accountid=9902.
Harvey, Dennis. “Legally Blonde.” Variety, Variety Media, LLC, 7 Feb. 2007, https://variety.com/2007/legit/markets-festivals/legally-blonde-4-1200510532/.
Hernandez, Ernio. “Blonde Beats Green: Legally Blonde Tops Wicked for Debut on Billboard Chart.” Playbill, Playbill Inc., 26 July 2007, https://www.playbill.com/article/blonde-beats-green-legally-blonde-tops-wicked-for-debut-on-billboard-chart-com-142516.
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McPhee, Ryan. “The Oral History of Legally Blonde: The Musical – The Search for Elle Woods.” Playbill, Playbill Inc., 1 June 2018, https://www.playbill.com/article/the-oral-history-of-legally-blonde-the-musical-the-search-for-elle-woods.
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