Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde

In 2003, when the height of corruption and disgrace in U.S. government was still the Bush administration invading Iraq under the false pretense of having “evidence” that it was harboring nuclear weapons, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde was released just two days before the Fourth of July. At that time, it was the two hundred and twenty-seventh anniversary of “America.” Or what America bills as its “birthday” as that’s when the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress (though not actually signed just yet). Twenty-three years later, it’s not only the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of America’s “birth,” but also plain to see that the kind of optimism that was so blatantly present in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde—panned as it was (and still is)—has all but faded from anyone’s memory or consciousness.

Released two years after Legally Blonde, its sequel decided to take a different tack while also upholding the plucky, “I/we can do anything” attitude that Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) became known for. At first keeping her in the “lawyer” role she had taken on at the end of Legally Blonde, it isn’t long before Elle finds a new cause in which to funnel her unique talents for argumentation and pushback. That cause being: outlawing animal testing in beauty products. Alas, her eventual (and expected) success in getting that bill passed (called Bruiser’s Bill, of course) is a far cry from the ongoing reality, which is that animal testing—particularly on dogs—is very much still in full effect.

But in the alternate world of Legally Blonde 2, Elle can triumph over any injustice merely with the simple start of putting on the right outfit. To that point, upon touching down in Washington, D.C., she moves into a building called the Wellington—where Sid (Bob Newhart), the doorman, will prove to be very useful with all the things he’s seen and heard over the years. It’s in her new apartment that she prepares for her first day on Capitol Hill. And by “prepare,” one means, of course, choosing the most “capable outfit” (as Cher Horowitz would call it).

And so, while trying on ensembles before she goes to “legislate,” Elle looks in the mirror with different “pieces” held up over her body as she says, “Too Nancy. Too Hillary. Too Monica.” Yet another sign of the times. When the latter two women were still dominating the cultural conversation and representing an end-of-twentieth century version of the Jackie and Marilyn tropes (only with their hair color reversed). In this sense, too, the references made in Legally Blonde 2 are indicative of a more innocent time in the country’s history, despite its residents believing that things really couldn’t get any more scandalous or sink any lower than a, er, sitting president getting a blowie from an intern.

This belief that it couldn’t possibly get worse was also in part because of highly conservative Republicans being in power at that juncture as well. The kind that took up people’s sexual orientation as a political stance. Hence, the cringe subplot about Bruiser and Leslie, a Rottweiler belonging to Republican congressman Stan Marks (Bruce McGill), being “homosexual” dogs. And, talking of Congressman Marks, Elle’s first introduction to him is when she overhears an exchange in the park between him and a homeless man. The latter asking, “Just a dollar. Don’t you believe in helpin’ a guy out?” Marks replies, “No, what I do believe in, sir, is an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Not rewards for idleness.” Ah, a classic Republican stance. Still alive and well.

Elle, as the “bleeding heart” answer to a modern-day Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), then slips the man a twenty as she says to herself, “People here have no common courtesy.” Little did she know, it was going to get so much more unimaginable on that front by 2026. Indeed, one wonders what another installment of Legally Blonde with Elle trying to take on D.C. now could possibly look like amid so much raging apathy and “everything is permitted” politics.

As for Jefferson Smith, it would be difficult not to think of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington while watching Legally Blonde 2 (much to many a cinephile’s dismay), which is why it’s eventually brought into the mix as an “intertext” by way of Elle’s beau-turned-fiancé from Legally Blonde, Emmett Richmond (Luke Wilson), watching it on TV while she’s on the phone with him. Namely, the scene where Mr. Smith is railing, “A man who controls a political machine! And controls everything else worth controlling in my state. Yes, and a man even powerful enough to control congressmen—and I saw three of them in his room the day I went up to see him!”

Emmett then tells her, “I’m really glad we’re watching this. This is good for you.” Apparently so. For she starts to get the same kind of defeatism-meets-“no, this cannot stand!” feels that Mr. Smith does. Especially after learning that the congresswoman she’s been working for, Victoria Rudd (Sally Field), has been working to undermine her bill for most of the time. This because she’s in the back pocket of some unseen donor named Bob, who tells her to kibosh the bill if she still wants his financial support (because, naturally, he has a stake in a cosmetics company and stands to benefit from continued animal testing).

When Elle is presented with a version of Rudd’s truth, which is that she had to withdraw her support for Bruiser’s Bill in order to bring another to a vote, she tells her so-called mentor, “That’s all just deals and trades and secrets. It’s not what people want.” Still hopelessly naïve in her assumption that politics is or has ever been about what people want. Least of all “the people.” Even though the proverbial “huddled masses” are supposed to be what documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are aimed at serving. But even Elle is starting to become jaded about that.

After being taken down a peg by Rudd and, supposedly her chief of staff, Grace Rossiter (Regina King), she walks down the steps of the Capitol in defeat. With the knife being dug further into her heart when she sees and hears a group of school kids reciting the famous line from the Gettysburg Address, “Government of the people, by the people, for the people…” What they leave unsaid is the part that goes, “…shall not perish from the earth.”

And yet, as the U.S. embarks on its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, it must be said that it feels as if that kind of government—or even that kind of idealism about such a government—has very much perished in the aftermath of a particular Orange Blob treating the power of the presidency like a mafia-run business. Which, sure, to an extent, it always has been. But never before like this. So blatantly and extremely.

To the point where it’s impossible to envision a scene like Elle giving her big motivational speech in the current moment. A speech in which she compares using one’s voice—speaking up about injustice—to how she should have spoken up about a bad haircut while she was getting it at the salon. In 2003, it was easier, more “inspiring” to hear Elle say, “I know that one honest voice can be louder than a crowd. I know that if we lose our voice or if we let those who speak on our behalf compromise our voice, then this country…this country is in for a really bad haircut.” Now, it just feels like she was genuinely warning audiences of what was to come. For the present state of America, on its Semiquincentennial, is so much worse even than her bad haircut analogy. It’s a bad combover/hair transplant. Or, as Ivanka describes it, “An absolutely clean pate—a contained island after scalp reduction surgery—surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray.”