Film Studies Essay

Film Studies Essay

- 2000-3500 word on three texts relating to one of more of the theorists.
- Essay: if you plan to do an essay you will need to introduce your texts and how they relate to your theorist - a brief synopsis or clips that demonstrates this will highlight your intentions.

This assignment will elaborate on the similarities between the theory created by Jacques Lacan through using the film Legally Blonde as a thesis. In this study I have chosen to compare Jacques Lacan's theory of 'The Want' to the film Legally Blonde (Robert Luketik 2001), which portrays a Malibu Barbie named Elle Woods. Elle Woods is a perky, keen, style icon sorority babe draped in pink and eager to solve the world's fashion emergencies. We as an audience idealise Elle from the start of the film as she seems to have the perfect life, the big group of plastic friends, the hunky admirable boyfriend and the bank account of 'daddy'. Throughout the film Elle has constant wants she tries to achieve, once we see her achieve them they're replaced with new wants which we see her then strive to accomplish and unlock her true identity as not just a 'dumb blonde' but an independent and determined woman. We see Elle as never being satisfied as well as wanting respect and within being stereotyped as a 'dumb blonde' challenges Elle and starts her journey in which links to Lacan's theory of the want. We see her conform to the more professional look as the film continues to in a way 'fit in' to societies values and identification of a lawyer. The hypothesis I have decided to explore is 'Is desire/want shown throughout the mainstream film Legally Blonde'.

Elle's hunger for wanting Warner to propose arises at the start of the film, the introduction is a fantasy like montage with lots of close ups creating enigmas for the audience on what's happening. The film starts with Elle's long blonde wavy locks with an extreme close up and a pull focus to present the audience with an enigma, the pink curly playful writing also connotes Elle's barbie lifestyle from just one shot of her brushing her hair. Next we see that a letter is being delivered by bike and the audience see flashes of the journey which we assume to be for this unknown beauty. Throughout the montage the audience get glimpses of what Elle's utopia is like, and the sorority in which she belongs to is all too cliche. Before we even see Elle we can imagine what she looks like / is like / smells and looks like from the enigma's created by the multiple close ups. 
By using the soundtrack in the background Perfect Day - Hoku it connotes the cheerful mood everyone is in and connotes the film to be seen as an idealistic world for the audience. When the letter finally arrives and mentions Warner and the 'good luck tonight' we guess that Elle has relations with him and by blowing a kiss to the picture frame suggests her desire towards this boy. She then goes shopping to pick out the perfect outfit and we see again her desire to look perfect and what Elle even describes 'the night she'll always remember'. Elle's current "Demand for love remains unsatisfied since the other cannot provide the unconditional love that the subject seeks" ('The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis' by Seuil in 1977) Which Seuil wrote in a seminar held by Jacques Lacan himself which exactly connotes the way Elle feels as she is unsatisfied by the way her love cannot be reciprocated by Warner whom she loves unconditionally. However the underlying message of the film is not for Elle to want Warner but to crave the acceptance of society for she is placed into this category of dumb and uneducated and to challenge this stereotype of blonde and pretty faced girls of being nothing but a sexual object.


Skipping to the night, we see in fact is was not the perfect day juxtaposing the music used, when Warner is driving alongside Elle when she is refusing to get in due to her heartache and Warner is still arguing with her about why she can't be good enough for him, she uses the line 'I grew up in Bell Air Warner, across the street from Aaron Spelling' interestingly Elle uses this as a device to look desirable, the fact that she grew up in a rich place with rich successful neighbours to get Warner to stay with her and comparing her to 'Vanderbilt's' who are amongst her with being rich. Right from the start we see Elle and Warner's tiff to relate to how being successful (and rich) as being desirable to each of them which connotes most mainstream film motifs. Lacan describes this in the "Imaginary phase" which was constructed by himself in the years 1936-1953. We physically see Elle turn into the opposite of what we thought of her, a slob, who sits in bed and cries over boys, which Lacan also quoted that "Anxiety as we know, is always connected with a loss... with a two-sided relation on the point of fading away to be suspended by something else, something which the patient cannot face without vertigo"(Lacan, W Grandoff 1956) Which connects the loss that Elle is feeling and the change of anxiety in her which she depicts all men to be the same and sits in bed with tears flooding down her eyes with comfort food.



A big scene that stands out to me in Legally Blonde in context of Lacan's term 'paranoiac knowledge' I thought about Lacan's evidence of the mirror stage and transitioning into "paranoiac alienation" in which Lacan condenses it to misidentification by having said 'ego is actually alienated from itself in the other person'. "This then leads to paranoiac knowledge in which the child or subject has a distorted relation to reality and to others, because with its misplaced ego there is perversion in the subject's cognition of the external".
I specifically thought of this scene because of the desire and the lack that the boy has that explores so deeply to the paranoiac knowledge. The character who is named 'Dorky David Kidney' which explains it all, perfectly exemplifying how the audience and the other characters are supposed to see him, here the scene is shown through a backward facing tracking shot from Elle as the frame opens up to reveal him more, the pull focus is still on Elle but our attention is mainly focussed on the background as the diegetic conversation is the main vocal point the frame widens to reveal David. The conversation we hear is him getting rejected from a girl on campus we feel empathetic towards him and the non-diegetic sad music draws attention to the matter that he is the outcast. She responds with, ''No, you're a dork", which is predominantly how he is supposed to be seen.
He attempts to show social status to her by stating the fact he goes to law school, trying to construct a way in which she views him favourably. However he fails and she replies with "girls like me don't go out with losers like you". Her language towards him expresses how she see's him in relation to herself - socially beneath her. By using words such as "loser" and "dork" show how she is not interested in him due to these points about the way he is constructed socially, without even knowing him personally she denies him because of the traditional values she has of him and because of what he looks like. 
Here enters Elle, Elle who we understand throughout the film people have described her to be attractive, blonde and sexually desirable. Elle slaps David and accuses him of breaking her heart and "giving her the greatest pleasure ever known and then taking it all away". She does this to show David to be desired by her, to show the girl he is striking out with to want to be with him. Through this conversation they've now had she changes her opinion on him to be that of a 'Casanova' to now make him desirable to her, as Elle walks away after slapping him the girl now questions "when did you want to go out?", completely changing her opinion through the use of Elle, suddenly has a change of heart as she obviously classify's Elle -a beautiful girl - to be high in the social hierarchy which relates to.


'What does it matter how many lovers you have if none of them give you the universe?' (Lacan 1901-1981) Which directly relates to this film in the way Elle could never be given the universe if she is constantly stuck in this circle surrounding the stereotype she is given. The social standing in which she has she battles through the film to change this, and when given love it still isn't enough for her as she doesn't just want to be seen as desirable, she wants to be taken seriously as a law school student and she spends the whole film trying to achieve this. She wants respect and acceptance, even the professors saw her as just a hair colour and the lack of respect she is given throughout her life has created a want as she is only seen as a sexual object which is uncovered throughout the film that this is completely untrue. "It takes a lot of confidence, self-love and self-worth to realise that you are capable. And that you have every right to leave your lane, and do things in the same way that other people do"(Allan Hennessey, n.d). This quote represents Elle and that realises she is capable of other things and can become whatever she wants as long as she can put her mind to it as well as anyone can do.
Throughout the film, we can identify many occurrences that feed into Lacan's theory of Lack, that Elle embodies the audience as a whole that we all that we are constantly lacking something in which we desire. Despite this throughout the film we also see a personality change in Elle, her dress sense and use of language becomes more and more formal (obviously still with lots of pink) we see her use educational terms as we see her flourish into an elegant form of her former self which we also compare ourselves to as Elle is in a version of all the audience's perspective as we all align with her and feel her emotions too. We empathise with Elle and see how she constantly forms these unconscious desires and the aim of Lacan's psychoanalysis is to 'lead the analysed to recognise their own desires and by doing so to uncover the truth behind their desire'. In which I believe Elle accomplishes just that by finding her true self and completing her desire in which was to initially get Warner back which became to uncover the truth behind Brooke's murder trial. Once Warner wanted to get back with her after realising she's not a 'bimbo airhead' but an intelligent women, Elle realises she doesn't want Warner after all subsequently uncovering her true form and now probably has many other want's in her life. Therefore this proves my hypothesis of 'is desire shown throughout the mainstream film Legally Blonde.  However at the end of the film we are shown quotes that say that Elle has finally reached her perfect world and is no longer in that state she was in of lacking throughout the whole film, so Lacan's theory was pressed in the film right up until the end which also shows the audience that Love is achievable no matter what Lacan's theory contains. 

REFERENCES
- Legally Blonde film directed, by Robert Luketik 2001.
- The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, by Seuil in 1977
- Lacan Fetishism : The Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real with W Grandoff 1956
- Imaginary Phase Lacan, 1936-1953
- 'What does it matter how many lovers you have if none of them give you the universe?', Lacan 1901-1981
- Allan Hennessey, n.d
- https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/17063853.Allan_Hennessy