Name: Aloysia Agnes Edita Student Number: 44483586

Legally Blonde; Barriers of Intercultural Communications on movie scenes

1. Introduction (brief synopsis)

This essay will analyze the intercultural communication scenarios in Legally

Blonde, a 2001 American comedy movie (Luketic, 2001). The movie is about a

young blonde woman named Elle Woods and her life pursuing her dreams. Elle

Woods has an appealing appearance, tall, blond hair and blue-eyed. Additionally,

she is a sweet and cheerful young woman, however, she is perceived so many times

in this movie as air-headed. She is dumped by her boyfriend named Warner

Huntington which is also the governor son. He tells Elle that since he is going to

become a law student he wants to be taken seriously and with Elle as his girlfriend

he can’t be taken seriously because of her appearance that is too blonde. Then, she

decided to get into Harvard Law School to win her boyfriend back. However, there

she discovered her untapped potential as a bona fide lawyer. With a 4.0 GPA and

179 on LSAT she gained her admission to Harvard University where his ex-

boyfriend, Warner and his just –engaged fiancé, Vivian Kensington are enrolled.

Everyone was shocked that she managed to get into Harvard, especially Warner. At

first Elle Woods is shocked of how the way Harvard students study, her friends made

fun of her because of her attitude and lifestyle. Quickly, she is seen out of her

element and is viewed as an outcast and is frowned upon by her classmates and

professors. She is always discriminated against and alluded to as the “Alpha Barbie”.

Nobody trusts that she can be smart enough to succeed in Harvard Law School.

There is yet this imbalance against Elle despite the fact that she has passed LSATs

and did the same tests as the other students. However, after several months of

coping up she undergoes a period of self-transformation. She starts to watch the

news rather than dramas, bought a laptop for herself to help her study. She
Name: Aloysia Agnes Edita Student Number: 44483586

participates well in class, by answering the questions and discussions. Later in the

movie, her original motivation was misguided, and it led to an experience that

fundamentally changed her. As a result, she gained improvements and awarded an

internship at Callahan law office to defend a top court case. It turns out that

professor Callahan accepts Elle into the internship program mostly because of her

looks and then later, he tries to hit on her and sexually harasses her. Thus, it makes

her upset, and she starts encouraging herself that she does not want people to take

her for granted. So, she begins to take her life seriously by allowing people to notice

not only her beauty but, also her academic beauty. However, throughout the process

people in her life discourage her to reach her goals. They think that is not capable of

achieving it. Nevertheless, she continues assuring herself to prove them wrong. Elle

Woods proves her ability by winning the trial murder case through her determination

and honesty. She manages to replaced Professor Callahan on defending a well-

known health instructor named Brooke Windham, a former member of her sorority

whom she admires and look up to in her own way with the knowledge she has. Two

years later, she gives the graduation speech with an invitation to join one of Boston’s

most prestigious law firm. She proves her ability and make her parents and also

professors that taught her proud. She becomes best friends with the people who

once looked down on her. Lastly, she shows that blondes can be intelligent.

2. Theories & Discussions

Stereotypes not only reflect beliefs about the traits characterizing typical

group members but also contain information about other qualities such as social

roles, the degree to which members of the group share specific qualities (i.e., within-

group homogeneity or variability), and influence emotional reactions to group

members (Dovidio et al., 2010). Elle Woods an attractive young blonde woman with

supposedly revealing appearance. Particularly, from her high-class attitude and

fashionable appearance people refer it to the “blonde” girl stereotype which is known

as dumb and fake (See Appendix A). Group based stereotypes are preconceived

beliefs about the characteristics of certain groups based on physical attributes or

social status (Obijovor, 2017). At the beginning of the movie, it emphasizes Elle

stereotype when the male leading character, Warner Huntington, broke up with her

because she is “too blonde” and that is why he cannot take her seriously (See

Appendix B). In addition to it, the scene where Elle Wood’s just moved into Wyeth

House, Harvard Law School. She directly gains attention from her colleagues

because of her appearance. She carries around her dog with her, also, uses a pink

furry pen and pink notebook to take notes. Elle Woods generates a strong opinion on

her stereotype. Then, people started calling her names, such as the “Malibu Barbie”

and “Alpha Barbie.” These callings people gave her are created because Elle woods

is known for her South California personality in complete contrast to her East Coast

classmate personality at Harvard University. People perception is influenced by

culture and differences in perception can lead to misunderstandings during

interactions (Liu, Volcic & Gallois, 2015). An intercultural situation is presented

where culture assumptions arise in the movie, the South Californian female students

are known as the fashion enthusiasts, cheerleader types pays too much attention to

appearance as seen from Elle Woods, while East Coast female students are more

serious and cold as seen from how Vivian Kensington acts in the movie. The society

thinks she is different and assumes that when she has one negative trait (a

characteristic of a person or an object) they dislike, she is likely to have other bad

traits in her. It can be identified as the first tradition of The Implicit Personality
Name: Aloysia Agnes Edita Student Number: 44483586

Theory. The reverse halo effect is a personal bias that a single negative trait

influences the perception of other traits as generally bad (Grcic, 2008). When we

identify an individual trait in someone, we assume the person also possesses other

traits in the cluster. Once we have formed a first impression of someone, we tend to

look for cues that are consistent and supportive of this impression and ignore those

that are inconsistent (Ann Tan, 2017). People attach an assumption to her because

she is blonde. Thus, she is lack of intelligence. As seen from the scene, when she is

forced to leave the class by her professor because she struggles on the readings

and Professor assumes that Elle has come to class unprepared. As a result of this,

many people especially her classmates and professors underestimate her ability and

perceive her as incompetent. The scene where students declined her can be one of

the example. She proposed to join a study group, however, she was declined by

everyone. One of the team members said it is full, and the group is only for smart

people, although she comes and brought breads for all of them to share with (See

Appendix C). This depicts the second tradition of The Implicit Theory where the

society tends to look for supporting evidence that is consistent to the first impression.

This can also be seen when Professor Callahan chooses her to become one of the

interns on his law firm just because he is attracted to her looks not because of her

capabilities. Later in the movie, Elle depicts how Self-Fulfilling prophecy theory

occurs in her life and it has an enormous impact on her. Self-fulfilling prophecy is a

statement that causes itself to become true by directly or indirectly altering actions.

There are two kinds of self-fulfilling prophecy, one is self-imposed, and the other one

is imposed by others. This movie portrays self-imposed fulfilling theory. Self-imposed

prophecies occur when your own expectations influence your behavior (Adler,

Rosenfeld & Proctor, 2013). It occurs when Elle Wood was discouraged because
Name: Aloysia Agnes Edita Student Number: 44483586

nobody takes her seriously she is tired of all the assumptions and callings people

make based on her looks. Thus, she convinced herself that she has the brain and

not just the beauty and that she wants to prove her capability. She struggled and

ladder herself up when she decided to become the top ranked law student at

Harvard Law University. Although she encounters difficulties and rejections, she

committed to herself that she is smart and hard-working. As a result, she managed

to gain success be one of the top-grade students in her class, awarded an internship

on Professor’s Callahan law firm and then later she wins the murder trial case in her

own unique way (See Appendix D). When people are given a label that supposedly

describes them, they will behave accordingly to the label (Liu, Volcic & Gallois,

2015). Although, Elle Woods is labeled as a dumb blonde, she refuses to believe so,

tries to break the stereotype on her and rather make it as a motivation to keep

moving forward.

3. Review of the strengths and weaknesses of theories applied

The legally Blonde movie has shown how people perceptions can create a

conflict in communication, especially on intercultural communication. The perception

process not always based on actual pictures of reality. Thus, in the movie, the

weakness of human perception is that it leads to stereotyping and

overgeneralizations and it may be wrongly generalized to some members of the

group (Hilton & von Hippel, 1996). On its application in this movie, Stereotyping

creates a negative image of particular group of people that are different. As what

happened to Elle Woods in the movie, she struggled to change the perceptions

people have on what her appearance or facial attributions with who she is on the

inside. At the end of the movie, she stated that people should not treat people based

on first impressions (See Appendix E), this is one of the example of the Implicit
Name: Aloysia Agnes Edita Student Number: 44483586

Personality Theory. The weakness is where people’s knowledge of themselves is a

profound influence on their beliefs about other people (Liu, Volcic & Gallois, 2015).

To implicitly linked traits with other traits that people want to associate with they have

to display these traits and by inference will be assumed to link it with another trait.

Which, can be different from one people to another based on their individual

experiences. Thus, it is also not accurate. Often that once the stereotype is created,

then a self-fulfilling prophecy is created, and people become like the stereotype.

However, the strength of self-fulfilling prophecy theory is shown when Elle Woods

impose self-fulfilling prophecy on herself is generated from the rejection of her

society. The people that look down on her and doubting her abilities. She did not

give up and let them bring her down but she turns it into a positive boost on herself.

Elle Woods has allowed her mindset to lock on to her goals and to map strategies

and solutions to get where she wants. It maximizes her unforeseen potentials. On

the other hand, if Elle Woods let the people around her to get into her head and

labeled her as a “dumb blonde” she might be influenced by the stereotype people

have of her and self-fulfilling prophecy that is imposed by other people, and she will

eventually become one. But, this movie generates the idea where people are

responsible for their thoughts. Thus, it is up to us to make a positive or negative

outcome from what we get from the society. Overall, Elle manages to disapprove

the stereotypes given to her without changing her appearance.

Reference:

Adler, R., Rosenfeld, L., & Proctor, R. (2013). Interplay, The Process of

Interpersonal Communication. USA: Oxford.

Ann Tann, S. (2017). Week 4 Perception: We are all glasslanders [Lecture notes].

Retrieved from COMU2170, University of Queensland Blackboard Online

https://www.elearning.uq.edu.au

Dovidio, J., Hewstone, M., Glick, P., & Esses,V. (2009). Prejudice, Stereotyping &

Discrimination. London: SAGE.

Grcic, J. (2008). The Halo Effect Fallacy, Electronic Journal for PHILOSOPHY, 1-6.

Hilton, J. L., & von Hippel, W. (1996). Stereotypes. Annual Review of Psychology,

47, 237–271.

Liu, S., Volcic, Z., & Gallois, C. (2015). Introducing Intercultural, Communication

Global Cultures and Contexts. London: SAGE.

Luketic, R. (Director). (2001). Legally Blonde [DVD]. United States: Metro-Goldwyn-

Mayer Studios Inc.

Obijiofor, L. (2017). Week three: Perception (We are all glasslanders) [Powerpoint

slides]. Retrieved from COMU2170, University of Queensland Blackboard

Online https://www.elearning.uq.edu.au
Name: Aloysia Agnes Edita Student Number: 44483586

Appendix:

(Appendix A)

(Appendix B)
Name: Aloysia Agnes Edita Student Number: 44483586

(Appendix C)

(Appendix D)
Name: Aloysia Agnes Edita Student Number: 44483586

(Appendix E)