Elle Woods from “Legally Blonde” is a character to aspire to. No other modern persona better symbolizes the freedom of living from the inside out.
If you are unfamiliar with the movie and its – in our opinion, better – sequel, here is a quick summary: Reese Witherspoon plays Elle Woods, a Californian blonde who applies and gets into Harvard Law School to win over a guy. While initially ridiculed and dismissed for being a speck of pink in a sea of brown cardigans, she eventually charms and disarms her peers and becomes the class graduation speaker. In the process, she also exonerates a client in a murder trial with her knowledge of haircare.
In the sequel, “Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde,” Elle heads to Washington, D.C. to pass a bill banning animal product testing. She first takes the advice of longtime Capitol Hill staffers and tries to appeal to lawmakers’ heads with statistics. When that does not work, she pivots and gathers stories about the lawmakers’ childhood pets to captivate their hearts. The bill passes.
Elle is successful in both films not by donning a shabby sweater or black suit but by leaning more into herself as a passionate, pink-loving firebrand. She never compromises herself, accepting defeat before conformity when the balance is tipped against her. She is an agitator through and through, unfazed by those around her.
When it comes to influencing those with positional power who may hold rigid opinions, we follow the guidance of being yourself. When you remain steadfast in your values and viewpoints and find alignment with the principles of even the most stubborn adversary, you connect with them on a level that allows for transforming heads and hearts for lasting, genuine change.
In “Legally Blonde 2,” Elle tapped into her and the lawmakers’ shared love of dogs to empathize with animals needing a loving home, not a sterile laboratory. She knew why she was not effective with numbers and charts. She lost touch with herself and did not even attempt to relate to those to whom she appealed. Realizing this error, Elle rallied the lawmakers with heartfelt communications interlaced with emotional petitions.
Being steadfast in who you are does not mean being stubborn and unopen to new possibilities. Instead, it means keeping values central in any interaction and changing your stance when they need a good shake-up. If you hold values like ours that revolve around accountability, compassion, empathy, and reliability, then you can be even more assured in your behavior and persuasion toward a society with people’s well-being at the core.
Of course, these movies are perky, fictional accounts of very arduous, nonfiction processes—trying a murder case, passing a bill—that are not only toxic but harmful for many communities. The systems and their imbedded biases active outside of a Hollywood soundstage can compound and overwhelm any passionate advocate championing their values on the best day. It is not as easy as wearing pink and researching a lawmaker’s first furry companion.
Or maybe it can be. We need charismatic personalities as much as cranks, just as we need all the carpenters, cooks, cashiers, counselors, computer scientists, and curators. This certainly is not revolutionary, as many cultures speak to the need for universal balance—yin and yang, good and evil, light side and dark side.
We need to figure out a way to allow the balance to truly exist and not be skewed in favor of any population or geography based on cultural, political, and historical context. We do not have a perfect answer because we believe there are many solutions to this challenge. What we do know is that we need to start now, and we need to start with everyone.
We need everyone leaning into their talents and skills to design new systems and processes that center people through equitable access and inclusive spaces. What one person envisions can be greater with input from another, and so on.
Elle did not compromise herself in any situation, and she did not marginalize or put down others. She valued who they were as much as she respected herself, and allowed everyone to see themselves in the solution, like changemakers working alongside their community. She used her energy to find common ground, not make enemies. If all of us did that, it would be a remarkable world.
