Bobbie Dennis

Today was one of those days. In fact, today was a Simon day.

You know the ones.

So I’m sat, staring at the wall, quietly stewing in an angsty sweat when after about three minutes I genuinely thought: What would Elle Woods do? And no, unfortunately this is not a lie and did genuinely happen. I really am this lame. But in all seriousness: it got me thinking, what would she do? What exactly have I learnt from Elle Woods?

For those who have been living under a rock and don’t know the premise of Legally Blonde, but also for those who think they know the story, I would like to take this moment to remind you that Legally Blonde is not chick flick. No. It is an hour and a half long manifesto of determination, intellect and defeating a sexist patriarchal mindset. Important lessons can be learnt, and must be taken from Elle Woods. So, without further ado, I present to you the 5 lessons that Elle Woods has taught me:

(also just as an aside: yes I am very aware she is a fictional person and no I haven’t gone insane) (just roll with it)

1: Practice makes perfect

When your life takes an unexpected turn or a scenario doesn’t play out exactly to the script you’ve crafted in the shower, it is SO hard to pick yourself up. Rather than wallow in a pool of self pity, Elle instead went completely ham on her LSAT and channeled all that negative energy. Even though she majored in fashion merchandising (not ideal when applying to Law School), she worked her absolute BUTT off and achieved that magical 179 to earn a place at Harvard, proving everybody wrong. You go girl.

Elle is a prime example of how practice makes perfect. Practice practice practice. Mark Manson’s book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck talks about this a little bit. He argues that people aren’t actually naturally better than you, it’s just that they’ve failed more times than you.

Huh. Until recently, this has whooshed straight over my head. Of course that’s not the case, I’m just pretty unexceptional and have merely accepted that failure is reserved for ~ordinary people~ but Manson’s discussion of failure has really resonated with me. He talks about how improvement at anything resides in the accumulation of lots of little failures and how success is actually based on how many times you’ve failed at something. He uses the example of a child learning to walk. The child will fall over thousands of times but at no point does that child think ah well shit, I guess walking just isn’t for me!! If someone is better than you at something then it’s probably because they’ve failed at it more than you have. Equally, if someone is worse than you, it’s likely that they just haven’t experienced the learning experiences that you have.

As i’ve said in my previous post, social media showcases success after success. From personal experience, it’s easy to assume that people have reached a stage where they own a fridge with an ice dispenser from some kind of raw, innate talent. While in actuality, these platforms can obscure the thousands of hours of graft that went into achieving their success. Because we’re so afraid to fail, we avoid failure like the wearing white oped-toed shoes after labor day (Elle would never) and instead, we stick to what we’re good at n plod along. But as Manson writes, this confines and stifles us. You can only be good at something you’re willing to fail at. By picking yourself up and being brave when failure comes to call, this will become a habit. All we need is a strategy for failure, so even when success seems unattainable it’s still okay to take a punt at it. When life throws you curve balls you have to ride the wave. Hard work pays off, you got this.

“I’ll show you how valuable Elle Woods can be!”

P.S if you’re interested in this, check out Elizabeth Day’s How to Fail podcast – full of super successful people (who probs all own a fridge with an ice dispenser) discussing their failures. P.P.S Phoebe Waller-Bridge has two episodes so that should be reason enough to check it out.

2: There are a lot of fish in the sea but there is also a lot of trash

What a tool Warner was. The only person he contents with for worst boyfriend in the romcom universe is Nate from Devil wears Prada (the true villain of that movie) and that’s saying something. It is so hard to detect trash and sometimes even when your trash-dar is bleeping at you hard and fast it’s so easy to shove it on mute. Warner was a complete bonehead and Elle is SO much better off without him, but there is no denying that rejection sucks. But why is rejection such a taboo? We’ve all been Elle Woods at some point – going over everything in your head (is it because I’m too blonde?? Then what? My boobs are too big??).

She’s intelligent, she’s funny, she’s talented, she’s successful, she’s independent, she’s beautiful, she’s x, she’s y – so what happened? It’s just like when Jay-Z cracked on with Becky With The Good Hair, people were shouting from the rooftops – if someone can cheat on Beyonce there’s no hope to any of us !! Call Bethlehem !! But equally, if Beyonce can get cheated on, then yes, it can happen to any of us, but clearly it has nothing really to do with her. Like Elle, we need to stop taking rejection as a direct affront and stop giving others so much agency over about how we feel about ourselves.

It might be bad timing, it might be that they prefer someone else, it might be that they’re not in a good headspace or you could be all the things they’re into but for some reason you’re not quite right. This is the exact situation where it is appropriate to ask: WWEWD? Elle doesn’t linger over rejection so let’s take a leaf out of her book and stop placing other people’s thoughts of ourselves on a pedestal. Absorb that energy and redirect it. She smashes Harvard, makes friends and wins a murder trial (!!) all with no man in sight. Having a partner isn’t the be-all and end-all and behind every strong woman…is a strong woman. And her girl gang. You don’t need a Pierce Brosnan, you need Donna and The Dynamos.

3: Being girly is NOT synonymous with being stupid and don’t let anyone make you feel otherwise 

In my final year of my undergrad I was absolutely gassed to find out I’d managed to sneak my way on to an over-subscribed module. This module was my jam. The gloves were off. I loved all the readings, I worked super hard, and (cringe) but couldn’t wait to write the essay. But yet, my tutor was always kinda dismissive of me, and although I tend to assume this of most people, I was under the impression that he thought I was stupid. Whatever. ANYWAY: time moved on etc etc and we eventually got our marks back and I actually did pretty well (woo), but when I went to see him he was SO curt and uninterested in me. That is, until he realised which paper was mine and what mark he’d given me. Like a switch, he was really enthusiastic, polite and was eager to answer any of my questions. You HATE to see it.

Maybe I just wasn’t his cup of tea, but I’m 87% sure he was disinterested in me because of my hello !! I have a high-pitch voice !! I’m a cheerleader !! I have a fluffy pen !! Everything I own is pink !! persona. This is merely one of countless examples of this sort of behaviour. For instance a friend of mine during a seminar was told by a boy that she was “a lot smarter than she looks” shortly after receiving essay feedback. What! Just because someone is girly doesn’t mean that they’re not intelligent. Think of how much potential has been wasted simply because an appearance was been judged?

Elle Woods is the epitome of this message, she struts into Harvard with her latex pink coat, little dog and heart-shaped notebook and proves them all wrong. Elle clearing her mate of murder through her personal knowledge of haircare maintenance is pure of evidence of how you can have a banging set of highlights with a good application of St Moriz fake tan and STILL be a serious force to be reckoned with. Society is generally reluctant to accept that women are multifaceted and with that it can be hard to back yourself when people think it’s okay to piss on your bonfire. There is SUCH a pressure to conform and be something that you’re not, so much so that you can lose yourself as an individual. Looks should never define you and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Wave that fully pen with pride and BE YOURSELF. Remember that first impressions are not always correct. You must always have faith in people. And most importantly, you must always have faith in yourself.

4: It’s cool to be kind

Ahhh what a scene. I feel like kindness is the most slept-on character trait of them all. Don’t get me wrong, I know how hard it is to be kind sometimes. Now I’m in London, everyone is so angry. Everyone walks at 15 mph. Nobody likes eye-contact. Every man is for himself and it’s soooo easy to get caught up in the angst and stress. Elle is SUCH an ambassador for kindness, even when there is nothing to gain. Take for example David Kidney, who was struggling to pull some girls. There was no need for Elle to intervene and yet that slap worked absolute wonders for the poor guy.

As a Fearne Cotton Happy Place superfan (if you don’t know get to know) when I found out she’d released an episode with Reggie Yates it was like birthday-christmas-pancake-day combined and it did not disappoint. The reason i’m mentioning this is that in one particular moment, Fearne describes an embarrassing first day on set whereby she accidentally swore on camera and her directors kicked off. Knowing how embarrassing this would have been for her, Reggie, a stranger to Fearne at the time, purposely messed up and swore too to make her feel better. What a guy. Small acts of kindness go a long way and it is so important to try to lift each other up in today’s horribly competitive world.

The relationship between Elle and Vivian is especially pertinent when evaluating #WWEWD. Vivian is the woman her ex boyf is now with so naturally, Elle is bound to feel some kind of animosity towards her. In the first half of the movie Vivian is the biggest perpetrator of female rivalry, undermining her in front of their professors, letting her come dressed as a Playboy bunny (!!) and just generally ostracising her at every opportunity. Yet rather than fuelling the fire, she doesn’t rise up because as we all know, hating on another girl isn’t going to solve anything. Instead she reaches out to Vivian and they end up becoming best pals. Love that. I think the reason Legally Blonde as a franchise has cemented itself so fiercely into pop culture is this overriding theme of female solidarity. Gals gotta stick together in this world. BE KIND #WWEWD.

(If you want to want to listen to this interview, and I highly recommend that you do, it’s https://open.spotify.com/episode/5hRbI4nN6ALfuxe5YUkZeg?si=0VNwskWrRfSP2DbfE6fr1Q) (You’re welcome)

5: Never get your hair wet after a perm

You don’t want to run the risk of deactivating the ammonium thioglycolate. Obviously. It’s the first cardinal rule of perm maintenance.

And remember, if in doubt, always bend and snap x 

Love, Bobs xxx

And if you haven’t seen the live version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m94kyVxXUj8 GO GO GO

And And Post Warner Elle Woods workout playlist link, for redirecting that anger and kicking butt: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1d76CzeCNoKQF5tforbrC4?si=6FSh-4UZSDi8Ca9H6jbVqQ