Saturday, February 05, 2005
The Original Elle Woods
Comments on Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown
So it turns out the movie used to be a book. A rather mediocre book. Don't get me wrong--it was interesting enough. I read it rather quickly, but I don't know if that's because I was engrossed in it, or the writing style was easy, or it was somewhat short. The thing that confuses me, though, is that the copy I checked out of the library says this book's first printing (at least by this publisher) was January 2003; Amazon says it was published in December 2002. Whichever one of those is true, it still doesn't explain the fact that the movie was released on July 13, 2001.
Actually, there is an explanation for this. Amanda Brown must have written a decent little novel but couldn't get it published, so she sold the rights to MGM to make a movie of it. The studio put a screenwriter on it, who spiffed it up and made it better, and of course cast Reese Witherspoon in it, who made it a hit. Then, after the movie was successful, Brown found a publisher for her novel.
Anyhoo, we have here the original Elle Woods: blonde, pretty, fashion-conscious, and sort of smart, but not as smart as she is in the movie. This Elle isn't so much the dedicated, ever-cheerful trooper who works at a problem until she overcomes it. No, she avoids her problems. She doesn't go to class often, and when she does, she spends the time reading Vogue. She takes her classes pass-fail. She relies heavily on a secret admirer who is slipping her outlines. She's not even particularly nice--she's just after Warner.
As a law student, my reaction to this book was much like my reaction to Scott Turow's One-L: my law school experience is nothing like this. With Turow, I figured Harvard was different back in the 1970s. But Brown based Legally Blonde on her experiences at Stanford Law School (presumably recently). Maybe Stanford is very different from Harvard. But my law school experience doesn't involve things like: everyone milling around comparing grades when they're released; tripartite division of the studentbody into Star Trek geeks (I mean literally--these characters talk to each other as if they were Kirk and Scotty), preppies, and feminists; feminists so radical they use the word "womyn"; people who dress up in red and hearts on Valentine's Day (wasn't that junior high?); note-passing (wasn't that junior high?); popular kids picking on unpopular kids both privately and publicly (wasn't that junior high?); or Wills & Trusts as a basic first-year requirement (definitely not junior high). It didn't ring very realistic with me.
That said, it's always fun to take a story you know and set it on a different course. I liked coming upon plot events that differed from the movie, simply because they seemed fresher. But of all the differences, the only part of the book that I preferred to the movie was who Elle ends up with in the end.
So it turns out the movie used to be a book. A rather mediocre book. Don't get me wrong--it was interesting enough. I read it rather quickly, but I don't know if that's because I was engrossed in it, or the writing style was easy, or it was somewhat short. The thing that confuses me, though, is that the copy I checked out of the library says this book's first printing (at least by this publisher) was January 2003; Amazon says it was published in December 2002. Whichever one of those is true, it still doesn't explain the fact that the movie was released on July 13, 2001.
Actually, there is an explanation for this. Amanda Brown must have written a decent little novel but couldn't get it published, so she sold the rights to MGM to make a movie of it. The studio put a screenwriter on it, who spiffed it up and made it better, and of course cast Reese Witherspoon in it, who made it a hit. Then, after the movie was successful, Brown found a publisher for her novel.
Anyhoo, we have here the original Elle Woods: blonde, pretty, fashion-conscious, and sort of smart, but not as smart as she is in the movie. This Elle isn't so much the dedicated, ever-cheerful trooper who works at a problem until she overcomes it. No, she avoids her problems. She doesn't go to class often, and when she does, she spends the time reading Vogue. She takes her classes pass-fail. She relies heavily on a secret admirer who is slipping her outlines. She's not even particularly nice--she's just after Warner.
As a law student, my reaction to this book was much like my reaction to Scott Turow's One-L: my law school experience is nothing like this. With Turow, I figured Harvard was different back in the 1970s. But Brown based Legally Blonde on her experiences at Stanford Law School (presumably recently). Maybe Stanford is very different from Harvard. But my law school experience doesn't involve things like: everyone milling around comparing grades when they're released; tripartite division of the studentbody into Star Trek geeks (I mean literally--these characters talk to each other as if they were Kirk and Scotty), preppies, and feminists; feminists so radical they use the word "womyn"; people who dress up in red and hearts on Valentine's Day (wasn't that junior high?); note-passing (wasn't that junior high?); popular kids picking on unpopular kids both privately and publicly (wasn't that junior high?); or Wills & Trusts as a basic first-year requirement (definitely not junior high). It didn't ring very realistic with me.
That said, it's always fun to take a story you know and set it on a different course. I liked coming upon plot events that differed from the movie, simply because they seemed fresher. But of all the differences, the only part of the book that I preferred to the movie was who Elle ends up with in the end.
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